In my ongoing fit of tackling things I've been meaning to do for ages, as you've already read, I ordered a set of prescription swimming goggles. They've arrived. And my chest is too tight to contemplate swimming. That's annoying. Might go anyway, we'll see what else the morning brings.

After banging out yesterday's entry, strolled into town for a bit... went to my old shadey back street second hand record shop, invested in a little Garbage (4th album, although I suspect they'll have lost their bite by now) and a little Beautiful South who impressed me considerably when I saw them both at the V Festival and at Castle Howard beforehand, so very warped. Met up with mother for lunch at Old Orleans, very different take on garlic mushrooms and potato wedges for starters, my chicken cheeze melt was more standard but very tasty none the less, a worthy trip. Had a little time to kill, so I wandered off to one of my old propellorheading haunts, Wattisham Airfield, the former RAF Wattisham - it's now gone over to Army Air Corps control thus the change in name. .

All change there; by my favourate spot at crashgate 2 (where once there was a smelly ditch famous only for concealing a bunch of SAS blokes during an exercise who got up and wandered out scaring the crap out of all the plane spotters after two days of hiding in their midst) there is now a neatly arranged war memorial to the British and American crews that flew from this place; a little known fact is that the first bombing raid of WWII flew from here, Blenhiems of 110 squadron, to Wilmshaven if I remember correctly. As with Blenhiem daylight raids, they got chopped up a bit. Crashgate 2 was positioned feet from a taxiway, in the old days the Phantom jets of 74sqn would taxi past you on the way to the runway, their wingtips no more than twenty feet away. Low fences, what one well positioned and motivated Irishman couldn't have achieved with a single hand grenade doesn't bear thinking about. Simpler, happier days. Not much flying, none of the resident Apaches in sight but photographed a Lynx coming in. Wandered over to Crashgate 1, at the very end of the runway. My god, what a fantastic site for takeoff and landing photography; why was I so stuck on gate 2 when this place was flying more interesting aircraft?

After that, back home to Barham, the village where I was raised. The intention being to drop in on Alan's lads night, every thursday evening for eight years, before the advent of shift working made me irregular. Popped in on Barham churchyard first to say hello to my grandfather, and see who else that I know has been keeping him company since. My gran's friend Elsie who died a few weeks back is there; was shocked to see a stone for one lady who I'm pretty convinced is one of my more fondly remembered teachers from primary school; of course we never knew our teachers christian names, but working out age from dates of birth, I'm fairly convinced it's her. That's a shame. As they say, the goodn's go first. Working on that basis, I'll be immortal.

Over then to Al's. His LoH, Claire was there for the start of the evening. Proof positive of what a good, no nonsense, sane woman can do for a chap. His house used to be, frankly a bit of a blokish cesspit. A very nice one, admittedly but it could be pretty grim. Now, all nicely wooden floored, tasteful wall covering, the computer moved into the games room, a lovely pad. Being a sensible sort of chap, he too has gone into cat stewardship (best not to think of it as ownership, eh), having a lovely friendly little tabby beast keeping them company. He's calmed down a pile, from the vodka and cider swilling loon of old, to a not dis-similar state of early middle aged'ness that I've got to, just without the insecurity, paranoia and insanity. Lucky bugger.

For a lads night, nothing much happened. It was known there wasn't going to be a game tonight, Sarge had fumbled his organisation roll and double booked himself at the beer festival; Trev' didn't turn up, which was a shame as I'd liked to have seen him - the first of us to marry, one of the few to achieve real contentment at any early stage; and Jon just didn't show. Bugsy came over though, not one of my closest mates. We always had pretty violently conflicting opinions on many things, his recreational experiments on the effects of narcotics on the human system, and thus his considerable scorn for my work being one - but he always makes me feel good, as he's one of the few people I know who's lardier and more unfit than me ;o). We're reasonably friendly these days anyway. Pleasant evening of chat, chips and "Tristan and Isolde" on the DVD gave Al's supertelly a workout. Pretty unmemorable title, but a pleasant and very well shot romantic film on the themes of big love with a certain amount of high quality hack and slay for the blokes to enjoy. Not so good if you happen to be a curly haired American playing a cornish hero type, and you don't like your heart getting trampled by death, moodyness, hopeless romantic situations, betrayal and big swords; and I'm sorry about that, I hope you get reincarnated as a character in a Wayan brothers comedy next time.