This evening I was supposed to meet up with Anni, SFG, Mat and Andy in Stoke. Sadly, Anni couldn’t manage it. This was a little awkward as I desparately needed to get my laptop back from her, but she had the best of excuses – Ed is ill.

Ed’s one of the cats she adopted off me before I left and once again, Anni’s proven that I couldn’t have picked a better home for them. He’s had a problem with his tail and is going to have a section of it amputated on Monday. In the meantime, he has one of those collar baffles on and it very miserable. As a result, he’s clingy which means that KK is sulking as she’s not getting any attention.

So, I took a long trip round. Leeds to Cardiff and then up to Stoke. In Cardiff, I chatted to Anni’s neighbour who’s been considering travelling for some time. I may have attempted to talk her into it… Well, she’s not happy at work and has always wanted to do it so why not? I know I’ve enjoyed it.

Up in Stoke, I was hosted by Mike and his lovely wife. Andy (known under a gazillion aliases online) turned up as well – great to be meeting up with so many people after so long. We played with Borris the insane dog for some time before taxi-ing in to Stoke and meeting Mat, who I’ve known since my first year at uni. Or second. Something like that.

We just “did” the two pubs – a Wetherspoons where we watched the rugby and drank beer, then a smaller bar round the corner where we listened to very bad karaoke and drank beer. Somehow I made it “home” where I collapsed in a very comfortable bed and slept for far too long.

The Clocking up the miles (Leeds to Cardiff to Stoke) by Iain Purdie, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.