Time for the traditional rubbish first-few-months-of-the-year blog! You know the one: where most fun activities still take place indoors, sans Christmas decorations or scenic summer vistas, so instead I need to keep thinking of different synonyms for “I had a drink with…” to keep the blog going. Oh well. You can follow Tash and Cormac on Polarsteps instead, if you prefer.

Drink #1 (in this narrative, at least) was actually a mimosa with Kira over bunch several weeks back in Dulwich Village. Drinks #2, #3 , #4 etc. were a few days later on a wonderful night out with Matthew, who I hadn’t seen for years and years! In return for my willingness to hop over to Ladbroke Grove on a school night, he crafted an excellent local pub crawl for the two of us, during which we caught up on the last decade or so, apologised unnecessarily for weird things we both said when we were 17, rehashed our mind/body debate from the Brent-Eton summer school (I’m still right) and started a whole new battle on the merits of the Central line. It was a blast.

Later that week I also hung out with current/former colleagues Klaudia and “three schwas in my name” Vanessa, which – as you can tell – descended unexpectedly into some really quite delightfully nerdy linguistics chat. Usually you can immediately spot people’s eyes scanning for the exit when I say something like “Guess what I learnt from a YouTube video on rhotics!” but this was the perfect group for such matters.

Randi missed all of this, just like she missed my spontaneous outing to Morden and Morden Park (the perfect place to stride across a muddy field while listening to a hypnotic 13 minute-long BBC News countdown theme remix, since you ask), but she was back in London the week afterwards in time for Caroline and Josh’s dinner party. Caroline and Josh are basically the only couple we have left who are still committed to the classic ‘invite a bunch of people who don’t know each other’ dinner party concept, and it’s great to be able to freeride off their hard work by meeting a bunch of interesting new people all at once. (Including someone who worked for my aunt, which briefly made me nervous.) Oh, and the food was delicious too!

A weekend later we finally hosted Alix, Adam and Austin at our flat – they have been very slow and nervous about venturing south of the river – and devoured Randi’s incredible smoked salmon frittata before enjoying a walk up Blythe Hill. Many thanks to Austin for being a legitimate reason to see the cool playground up there! My mum has also stayed with us a couple of times recently (despite fierce competition from a plethora of London options) and we all had a lovely evening together in our local fancy Italian, Nonna Maria, where my mum was delighted that her Italian is still good enough to pick up rude words on the menu.

Last weekend I joined Randi in Scotland for an extended weekend trip to celebrate Kirsty’s birthday! As you’d expect we celebrated in the traditional way: canvassing sessions, fondue, a Randi-made chocolate birthday cake, haggis cigars and a three-part Channel 4 documentary on the 1984 miners’ strike. (Clarification: haggis cigars consist of haggis in spring rolls, and are not smoked.)

On Sunday I had my usual day off from door knocking for another classic Doctor Who session with Katie and James. After a long break, we decided to return to Tom Baker’s ‘Key to Time’ season with The Androids of Tara, a jaunty low-stakes adventure set in a medieval society which just happens to have electro-swords and androids thrown in. Despite a lacklustre ending this was pretty pacy and fun for most of the story. It probably peaks at the point when the evil Count Grendel’s poor, loyal servant Lamia – a lovestruck peasant who is also the local expert on androids – is mercilessly killed off by a stray shot and completely unlamented. #teamLamia

I’m really not sure when I last saw my American cousins David and Ginger – quite possibly as far back as 2016! – so it was very exciting to see them again on Monday night after we had trained back to London. Randi and I notched up another Ottolenghi restaurant with a meal at NOPI (such exceptionally tasty food) before taking them to A Mirror: an extremely funny play-within-a-play political thriller set in a heavy censored, totalitarianish state. I loved it, partly because it was just so enjoyable to watch, but also because it had a more sophisticated take on politics and art than your bog standard 1984-inspired dystopia. (Side-note: I recognised one of the actors – the electrifyingly charismatic Jude Akuwudike – from last year’s Immersive 1984, where he played a very similar role. My conclusion is that Akuwudike is not, in fact, an actor but rather a genuine totalitarian bureaucrat who has simply slipped through the gaps between worlds.)

I feel a little bad about all of this because all of the preceding paragraph was originally Alix and Adam’s plan for themselves. Unfortunately for them, work got in the way and so Randi and I were the happy beneficiaries of their beautifully-crafted evening. Sorry! On Thursday night we also took advantage of our Chicago friend Karol being in the UK for a wedding, so were lucky enough to get to host him in London for a night and fill ourselves to bursting at The Mayflower pub in Rotherhithe. Oh, and talking of weddings: congrats to Jess and Adam, whose beautiful ceremony was admired by all the Selfs on the livestream today! I hope Katie packed her speech with enough Scottish-themed jokes.

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