Back home. Or rather at parents' home. I'm not a big fan of this nomading around, much better to have a hobbit hole of your own to dive in. A friend of the parents has got a mountain of rugs she needs to get rid of though so I now have five beautifully patterned floor-huggers to cheer up the 70's carpeting disaster that masquerades as the Cardiff Flat.

I'd forgotten how odd it is down here - I live in one of the most gorgeous areas of England but as soon as I land I get claustrophobic and don't leave the house except to drive five miles to meet someone. You'd think that after so many years of being driven around I'd relish the chance to escape but I appear to have become conditioned to balefully glare at the world from the safety of a socking great sheet of a glass. Oh goody.

I was lucky enough to get a lift home with K, the guy whose house I was crashing in in Durham. A great drive - sunny, lots of drinks, silly conversation and slightly crazed chanting of the phrase "lemony-limey". Don't ask. We hadn't even got out of Durham however when I saw a small dog, can't have been bigger than a Jack Russell, writhing around on its back with a car pulled in front of it. I managed to convince myself that running would be the quickest way to get back to the dog, not staying in the car and preserving my maltreated lungs and lack of stamina, but either way when we separately reached the place the dog had run off. It had blood running from its mouth, so K reckoned its ribs had been forced into its lungs. I rang a very indifferent sounding vet who said he'd come and look for it. That dog is probably dead now.