After the excesses of last night, I woke up in something of a weakened state. This might make the casual reader imagine that I'd spent the night drinking and taking drugs. In fact, I had stayed completely sober, the only excess of intake being food-related and fat-containing. The excesses which most affected me, though, were the excess of cold (or maybe that's a paucity of heat?) and the general amount of standing around, or bouncing along to music that occurred.

As a result, when I woke up in my sleeping bag, fully clothed, in a caravan, on the second visit of the organiser of the gig, who was packing his stuff up to leave, at around 11.45am, I ached. I was a fair bit warmer than when I got to sleep, but the comfort of the caravan had been mainly in terms of a sofa to kip on. I had expected something more - like some sort of mobile hotel. No. An unheated space, be it a tent or a caravan, is a place to freeze your nuts off in the middle of the night.

I'm not being ungrateful. I had a hassle free "camping" experience and I was treated very well and had had a good gig the night before. It had been a cracker of a day all in. However, it was time to go back down south.

I limped (literally, my leg had seized up) to my car and headed to the nearest services on the A1 where I managed to find some coffee (not too hard) and respite from other requirements of the body. Then I continued my merry journey down south.

Of course there was the Elaine Paige musicals programme to listen to. There were also the CDs from the band that had headlined the night before. The process of sitting in a car for 5 hours to get home wasn't entirely painful. It's what I do.

Back home, I had time to get showered and re-dressed before I was then due to go into Reading for a meeting before the comedy night I was compereing. I decided to be healthy and cycle into town. This was a good move. What wasn't a good move, in hindsight, was the bit where I did a lap of honour of the little market square outside the pub where we do the comedy. It was a nice market square, and the lap of honour was fun. Picking up a puncture wasn't fun. I reckoned I'd just pump the tyre up at the end of the night and replace the inner tube later.

The comedy night went really well. A nice audience. One of the best we've had there in terms of mix of people and numbers. Conversely, they were a bit Sunday-night-sticky. They needed pushing into a laugh. Some of the acts self-destructed a bit. Still, that's new act/new material nights.

Afterwards, I discovered that the new pump for my bike has the wrong attachment for my valves.

I pushed the bike home, via the chip shop. Sod it.

At the chip shop I had a smileathon with a pretty girl who then disappeared into the night. Pointless. But then making a room full of strangers is similarly pointless... though I wouldn't trade it.