It seems the Winter Vomiting Virus is spreading like wildfire throughout Shotley Gate. I went for a walk this morning to the other end of Shotley and back, for no other reason than that it was sunny and I want to win a fiver off Lisa. On the outward leg of the journey I spotted nothing untoward, save for an elderly lady I've never met before insisting on stopping me to discuss the cold wind, and venture the opinion that winter might be on its way. Personally I could've told her that by staying indoors and looking at a calendar, but I politely nodded and agreed with everything she said.

Having retraced my steps back down the road however, I walked a stretch of pavement I'd covered just forty minutes earlier, and...

There were two patches of fresh vomit on it.

I could have taken a photo, but I didn't. Suffice it to say it was a beautiful shade of pink, and quite chunky.

So who in their right mind would vomit copiously on the pavements of Shotley Gate at 11 o'clock in the morning, other than a fellow victim of the Winter Vomiting Virus? Or possibly an alcoholic. Or anyone who'd just eaten at the Happy Fryer.*

Either way, I'm wearing a face mask from now on.

This afternoon my mother came over with a suitcase full of junk, confident in her assumption that I don't have enough junk already. Having sorted through it and chucked half the contents in the bin, I discovered two items of interest:

1. A stack of old photos, including one of me aged 9 wearing a Great Ormond Street Hospital sweatshirt (what on earth possessed me to buy that???).

2. Six folders containing every A-level English essay I ever wrote. Which is marvellous, coz it means I can sell them all on Ebay when I'm famous.

I also found two of my A-level exam papers, so I now know that at 2:30pm on Tuesday, 18th June 1991, I was attempting to answer the following:

"A nobleman's sadistic trial of his wife's fortitude and constancy."
Say how far you consider this a fair summing-up of The Clerk's Tale.

So I just wrote "Not at all" and walked out.

Well ok, I didn't. But I did regret not questioning their use of 'summing-up' instead of 'summation'.

*only joking. I love the Happy Fryer.