Although I’m not the world’s biggest fan of getting up early at the weekend, I was awake at half past nine this morning. Mandi was on board the time-and-a-half train until two o’clock so I had planned to make good use of the morning before meeting her for lunch. In order to clear my head before embarking on an intense few hours of work (self-employed people don’t get time-and-a-half on Saturday, if you feel sorry for me why not click that yellow button at the top of this page) I took Jack to the park for some exercise. It was too hot for him to be running around with his usual gusto, so I just let him amble around pissing against trees and generally enjoying the freedom of not wearing a lead for a while. His happy face told me that he was quite content to trot around and enjoy rolling in the grass with an occasional run after his ball, which I think he only did to keep me busy. As soon as we were back in the house he drank his water bowl dry and followed me into my office to have a kip on his nest.

I had the latest edition of The Sunday Alternative to record, which went without a hitch. Once I’d uploaded it and set the blog up, I had just enough time to run through my never-ending pile of emails and general admin before a quick shower and out of the house. We had decided to have lunch at the chip shop in Bulwell, which does the second best chips in Nottingham, so I took advantage of the nice weather and walked there. Even a shithole like Bulwell looks a little bit better in the sunshine (quote for the poster if they want it). After chips we had a book haul in the town’s charity shops; I came away with Jamie Forman’s autobiography written around the time of his stint in Eastenders. Although I don’t know a lot about his career besides Eastenders and his part as the dad in the Doctor Who episode The Idiot’s Lantern, I do like to read about the 1960s gangland era, and as he is the son of Freddie Foreman I imagine he has an interesting story to tell. My other purchase was James Corden’s autobiography. There was a period of time a few years ago when I decided that Corden was a twat, but I think a lot of it was down to overexposure, not helped by that terrible series Horne & Corden (on BBC3 of course). Over time I have warmed to him and am always taken by surprise when I see him on television and decide that he isn’t such a bellend after all.

If I hadn’t done enough work this morning, this evening I started to clear the back yard. We have Japanese Knotweed which is, to use a horticultural term, an absolute bastard. Who said the weekend was for resting?

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