After meeting Lisa for lunch yesterday (I was only 15 minutes late), I made my way to Hove, bathchair capital of Britain, for the afternoon. It turned out that the streets of Hove are paved with gold. Yes, that's right, I discovered 11 charity shops within 200 yards of each other. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

In addition it turned out that the staff of the YMCA shop are just too young and Christian for their own good. I decided to buy a rather fetching denim jacket marked £4, only to be greeted by a member of staff who, when faced with my attempt to hand over four pound coins, said "that's been there for a while, you can have it for three if you like".

Bearing in mind that I was standing at the counter holding out four quid at the time, it wasn't the best business decision she's ever made. But obviously I didn't argue. So if any homeless people die over the weekend in Brighton for lack of a pound's worth of soup, you'll know why.

Anyhoo, I managed to fit in a couple of hours of quality time with Lisa's nephews before we left the south coast. We forsook the video games in favour of pretending we were in a spaceship. Which basically involved me sitting on the floor in Lisa's bedroom while nephew number one climbed all over me, and I attempted to fight off the evil alien (nephew number two) with my phasers.

Fortunately I survived, and Lisa and I made it back to Shotley Gate in time for Celebrity Big Brother.

Tonight is THE highlight of the 2004 Suffolk social calendar, with an exclusive event hosted at a top Ipswich restaurant, and attended by the leading lights of East Anglian high society. Well, four of the leading lights of East Anglian high society. And one of them's not from East Anglia.

Yes, it's true, Lisa and I are meeting Crash and Donna in Ipswich for an evening of pizza, pasta, and Weight Watchers rule-breaking. Personally I'm quite scared (mainly of Crash's taste in hats and shirts), but as Lisa said, if they turn out to be a complete nightmare, we can always climb out of the toilet window before the main course, and run away to Brighton.

Well ok, she didn't actually say that. But it's what she's thinking, I can tell.

Anyhoo, with four hours to go, Lisa's almost decided what shoes to wear, and she's confidently announced that she'd like us to get there early. So it's looking good for us only being about half an hour late.

I'm sure it'll be good anyway. But if neither Lisa nor I post on our blogs tomorrow, call the police immediately. We'll probably be in a ditch somewhere dressed in bobble hats and Elvis wigs.