often seen in the street without a hat

I went to Leicester for the weekend with chiasmata to see each other and some comedy festival things. I appeared to be on one of the few routes not subjected to a rail replacement bus service, which was nice, though one train was enlivened by forgetting my plastic fork and having to use my fingers to eat my pasta salad*, and then by a visit to the train lavatory where the strong smell turned out not to be emanating from the toilet itself, but from a pool of urine that had been collecting in a corner, until the train changed angle, at which point it began to lap at the bottom of my jeans, which was traumatic.

Katie met me in the station car park, though Leicester railway station turned out to be almost entirely surrounded by car parks, so this took longer than expected. The hotel was sweet, with information about having to run the sink tap on hot in order to make the shower work, and wallpaper on the back of the door, but not the walls. We saw Juliet Meyers, whom I liked mostly because she too did Women's Studies; half the comedians who were supposed to be at the Comedy Cafe because they were apparently accidentally in Oakham; Pappy's Fun Club; Isma Almas and Jaik Campbell, whom I did not like one bit.

I have been enjoying drawing people's interests. It is never too late to submit! I also did some work, mostly reading three chapters of a book about girlhood and then trying to copy up my notes, made more difficult by not being able to read my own handwriting. Tomorrow I will WRITE. Probably. Now I am trying to decide whether to have a bacon sandwich, roast chicken or a sausage and apple pie for my supper. The trouble is that they will all involve me getting off the sofa.

This weekend I will be in the house all alone, because Alice and Jen are going to Redemption. Usually I am the one who is away, or we are all away together. This will probably be the longest period of time I've been alone in the house for the last four years. I hope it doesn't go badly wrong.

* Worse yet, I later discovered that I hadn't forgotten it, merely put it in my pocket.

Yesterday I saw Ivanov, with Kenneth Branagh. I liked it very much, although the first bit was rather dragging. However, the theatre was absolutely freezing, and I probably missed some of the subtler bits due to wondering if I would ever be warm again and trying to regain feeling in my fingers.

Then I met huskyteer and we went to Chinatown and then the Laughter in Odd Places gig at the Borders in Charing Cross. Sadly, Stewart Lee had cancelled, but there was still Terry Saunders, Andrew O'Neill, Tim Key and Josie Long. Josie Long specifically said if we didn't like her we were not to write a blog post about it. I had a lovely time, although when Tim Key's assistant swallowed a balloon I was rather terrified, and probably overly impressed.

I chose St Paul's YHA to stay in as it was reasonably central and claimed to be in an area both safe and quiet. I had to switch rooms after the first one I was allocated overlooked a hugely noisy bar. When I asked to change rooms, the surly staff member (which is actually the only type I've ever encountered at the city YHAs) first insisted that all the rooms were on the same side and then grudgingly gave me a key for one that miraculously wasn't.

It was, however, equipped with a snorer. A snorer who was loud and arhythmic, who would occasionally give a blissful few minutes of peace, sufficient to lull you into thinking that might be it, but never long enough to get to sleep. "Accidentally" shining my phone light on her didn't help. (I thought that it might make her turn over to get away from the light without properly waking up. It wasn't just nastiness on my part.) Turning over very violently myself occasionally helped, but only for a moment. I had gone to bed at 11.30pm, after three hours I gave up and listened to music. She drowned out Feist, Rilo Kiley and The Beatles, so I listened to Rancid for a few hours. I like Rancid, so it's okay, but they're not very relaxing. Eventually at 4.30am the generator-sounding thing outside kicked in and I was able to doze fitfully until 8am.

In the morning she looked at me sympathetically and asked if I'd had a bad night, so naturally I apologised in case I'd kept her awake.

I'm supposed to be going to see Six Characters in Search of an Author this afternoon, but I'm worried that I'll fall asleep. I'm in the British Library, taking advantage of their free wi-fi and actually quite hurting my back on the weird seat thing. I had intended to work, but now I'm pretending that it'll be better to do that on the train home anyway. I wrote over 1000 words on the train yesterday, and read two chapters of the book on feminist methods I took out of the library.