Here I am, back in Southend... a place that's strangely familiar and yet not entirely where I feel I should be. I mean... it's home, I've spent probably 15 or 16 years in this house, on and off (I think we moved here when I was 7), and yet... since 1997 I've spent four years living in Leicester, too. So I'm no longer completely sure where "home" is. Is it Leicester? Is it Southend? My family's here, my friends are in Leicester... I dunno, it's probably not worth wasting too many brain cells over...

Anyway, I suppose you want to know what I've been up to. This is my week off, after all. A week of not much work, apart from the reading that my dissertation supervisor kindly gave me. ;)

Yesterday I went to the Donington Motor Museum, with my Dad (who'd come to collect me), and Mark. If you like F1 and you've never been there, you should definitely go! To walk into a room full of beautiful McLarens, or Williams (what is the plural of that?), or sleek 60's racers... there's an enormous sense of history, mixed with the unmistakable smell of oil. All those names from the past - James Hunt, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost... the cars they loved, the cars that behaved like dogs, the cars they drove their hearts out in. I know not everyone gets it, but to me F1 is the perfect union of man and machine, ultra fit athlete and cutting edge technology. To me it's a lot more than cars driving round in a circle...

Today I didn't do much. Having said that, I've spent a lot of time with my Mum, which makes being here worthwhile. Even if I sat here doing nothing but did that nothing with my family, it'd be worth it. If you know what I mean. We went to the car boot sale that's held every Tuesday at the Southend United football ground, then we went to Aldi, then we came home and had coffee, and a little while later had lunch. In the afternoon we went to Matalan, Poundstretchers and Lidl. Then we went to see my Nan and Grandad.

My Nan and Grandad didn't ask me how Mark was. It dawns on me that perhaps the Mark thing doesn't mean that much. Today Grandad asked me if 'my friend' was hurt over the weekend. Whenever he asks me about 'my friend' I have to think really hard. Then I realise he means David Coulthard. David span off in Sunday's Grand Prix, you see. It amuses me that he always calls D.C. 'my friend', especially considering that when D.C. actually did phone me up I wasn't in. (All Waitrose's fault, but hey, they gave me money...)

After that Mum and I came back home and put up the 'two person' tent that we bought at Poundstretchers. Mum 'treated' me to it since I'll probably need a tent for that 'secret' dig in September. We figured if we left it outside it'd probably get rained on and we could see if it was really waterproof (it only cost £10, which seems a bit cheap for a decent tent!). But it's kind of made it stop raining. It rained something like 12mm of rain this morning. Madness!

Hmm... what else have we done... can't think of anything. My brother John made me sit in his car so I could hear his sub (he only recently put all of his sound system into the 306). He played Craig David and Mr Sting's collaboration as a special treat. ;)

Watched a bit of TV, ate dinner, talked, had a bath, Dad showed me all the new Pop Pop Boats he's acquired, and now I'm here.

That has to be enough detail about my day, right?

So... no broadband for the week. Or midband. Whatever. But I am getting a respectable 45.2kbps from the ol' modem.

Nice.

I have been mostly.... READING: harry potter and the goblet of fire (jk rowling)