Catching up:

Last week at work we apparently we had a deadline for a trade show at which a customer wanted to demonstrate our product. I say apparently because it came and went with obscene ease; by the time I had noticed a slightly raised level of collective blood pressure around the office, we'd done all the required work and our boss took us out to the pub for a couple of pints on Friday lunchtime to congratulate us on a job well done. The afternoon passed in a Zeppelin haze and set the tone for the weekend: leisurely, enjoyable and with a healthy dose of late '60s rock providing the soundtrack.

Having bought a new (old) camera from Amazon the other day, we toddled up to Princes Street gardens on Saturday afternoon to try it out and had an expectedly awesome tourist interlude for a couple of hours. We ate overpriced hot dogs and drank coffee on a patio in gale-force winds, took in the 3dinburgh design exhibition and pottered around my favourite graveyard in the shadow of both St. Cuthbert's and St. John's. I can't put my finger on quite why the afternoon was so much fun, but I think it's just a happy confluence of a number of factors: my diary is joyously empty for the next week, Ash's visa quest is out of our hands (and hence out of our minds) until her appointment through in Glasgow at the end of July, and work is rather obviously running smoothly.

I was feeling conspicuously relaxed in advance of the evening's entertaining, when we had Jez, Serena, Neil and Vanessa round for dinner. I think we've been a bit remiss of late in getting together with the usual suspects and I must say I was replete with joy to have everyone round. Ash cooked a monstrous Southern feast (I tried to help, honestly; but whenever I turned my back for a moment some new dish had materialised and all I could do was serve it up) and I acted as barman for the evening. After some amaretto-fortified coffee I unpacked the stereo and slipped on some CCR under the radar whenever no-one was looking.

On Sunday morning I paid in full for the previous evening's indulgences but it was damn well worth it: food, friends and a few snifters is a nigh-on foolproof recipe for a perfect night.