Ah! Friday! The weekend starts! Met up with P for leisurely Sudanese dinner in town this evening. I can't stop banging on about my trip to Mauritius, my cousins, my family, the coconuts, the extraordinary sounds of the mosques calling for prayers, the mountains, my sense of belonging, the awe and wonder. It's beginning to get cold here in the UK now but this is home.

This week has been a steady mix of work and play. It is so possible to recapture snippets of that decadent holiday feeling in your everyday life, isn't it? Extend your stay with your family in London for another night, wake up twenty minutes before your train leaves for Brighton in the morning, go to a concert on your own, meet a friend in the pub, watch a video, eat chocolate, leave work early and catch the end of the autumn sunset, join a crowd watching fire-carrying parades, stare at the biggest fire you've ever seen and stand gobsmacked at spectacular fireworks, listen to music on headphones on the way to work, go to open mike sessions in small, intimate pubs, squish six people into a three-seater van, look out at the fields and autumn-leaved trees at lunchtime, go and see some photography (Boris Mikhailov at the Gardner Arts Centre with M), play secret nerdy jokes on the biologists looking for rodents in the woods (hush hush!), pocket the latest letter from your friend in Italy and read snippets during every spare moment of the day, meet your friend with the best ears and understanding for a meal in a quiet restaurant... Not a bad week, huh?