Since I last wrote...

Friday - leave work at 4pm, race home, finish packing, await Paul's arrival with hire car, drive across London to Hackney to pick up his sister, drive from Hackney to Liverpool, arrive just before midnight, meet the parents, eat cheese, drink wine, chat until shortly before 2am, go to bed.

Saturday - wake up, have breakfast with in-laws, go into very windy and wet Liverpool via romantic viewpoint where Paul apparently took young impressionable Wirral lasses back in the day, sightsee around Liverpool including unnavigable Museum of Slavery, listen to graphic diary accounts by slave-owners about horrific treatment of runaway slaves, drive to meet Paul's old piano teacher, have tea with her and her husband and listen to assembled trio bitch/reminisce about local classical music scene. Eat more mini chocolate eggs than is perhaps polite. Drive back to in-laws' via Catholic Cathedral, get ready for evening out, go to dinner at delicious restaurant with fifteen intimate family and friends including grandmother and godmother, reapply make-up too late, return to family home, have more wine and stay up talking until 4am.

Sunday - wake up, have incredible home-cooked breakfast with local sausages and yet more family, drive with sister to Manchester to meet (wait for it) godmother's friend's nieces who are also part of extended posse, have tea with them, go to pub with them, drive back to Hackney, drop off sister, drive back home, collapse.

Monday - wake up before 7am on scheduled day off with early phonecall from moronic Tesco's delivery people who claim that once again I have entered my card details incorrectly when I DIDN'T. Give them correct details (again) and am assured that groceries are en route. Despite reassurance, I am surprised by arrival of groceries while Paul is returning hire car - approximately nine metric tons of produce spread across eighty five plastic crates containing enough frozen goods to fill a deep freeze and a box of washing powder that looked really big in the picture but will, in fact, probably only last me a week. Tesco delivery man refuses my offer of help carrying them upstairs and, over the course of several trips, becomes increasingly breathless to the point where I begin to worry that I may have to add 'paramedics' to list of people who are visiting this morning. Man from Virgin arrives to fit my TV and broadband supply although he leaves without giving me a cable for the TV or a password for the broadband and customer services are later so unhelpful that Paul starts swearing like an extra in a Tarantino movie. While Virgin man is doing his stuff and I am frantically unpacking groceries, Paul decides that his breakfast is now an urgent priority and begins to make porridge which involves asking me for various sized bowls and ingredients, oven gloves and measuring jugs while I, still unbreakfasted and weak, struggle to get past him as he continually stirs and adjusts his oats in the microwave. Just as Virgin man is leaving, washing machine arrives from Tesco Direct. Paul, replete after porridge, and I, still flimsy with hunger, manage to get it through the door of my 'utility room' (as opposed to the one I inherited with the flat which resoloutely refused to take its place inside the area I had designed for it at some expense). Despite fitting into its designated place, washing machine, however, cannot be connected as idiot builder has crucially not positioned the pipes in a way that means they can be used. Growl. Laundromat beckons. Perhaps I didn't need big box of washing powder after all. After a hurried lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwich, created as bread must be eaten since it won't fit in freezer, Paul and I take train to Barnes, put on load of washing, play with cats, collect my mother's car, drive it back to my flat (round trip: approx 1 hour), fill the car with rejected Ikea items which may or may not be eligible for a refund, drive to Croydon in disgusting traffic, manage to obtain a £361 refund (high five!) and then spend £250 on non-essentials in the store including sun loungers, hanging plant pots and a Lazy Susan that won't fit in my kitchen cupboard. Pah. Drive back to the flat, unload new purchases, drive to Barnes, drop off car, pick up wet washing, get train and bus back to flat, arrive at 8pm, cook dinner of chicken kiev, spaghetti hoops and frozen peas, watch bad TV, drink Oyster Bay, feel like death, sleep.

Tuesday - I am now officially the world's most exhausted person but since individually each element of my marathon three days was either very fun or very useful, I am not - for the record - actually complaining. I do slightly think I deserve a medal though. And for joining me yesterday and being unflinchingly perky throughout, Paul deserves a gen-u-ine Certificate of Insanity and a big virtual kiss.