The sun is shining. There's no wind. Everything is sparkling in the coating of thick hoar frost which the cold night brought with it. It is, in short, a spectacularly beautiful day and I'm stuck inside on the chuffing computer.

I did have plans but they have been cancelled. I suppose it's my own fault really. The catalyst was the phone call I made suggesting a slight rearrangement to the plans ( which we'd made weeks and weeks ago). All week I've been told to expect this morning's match to be cancelled due to the weather but as Sunday approached and no "Halt" call had been received, I tried to reshedule things so that I could do both. Within a couple of hours Coach Goodegg rang to say it was off after all, training too ( he must have been planning a big night last night).

I tried to reactivate the original plans and the only change to proceedings were that Sophie would come over in the morning rather than for dinner the night before ( Martian's rugby match also having been cancelled or abandoned due to the onset of precious old age, I know not which). This was fine. It just meant I'd heat up a Sloppy Guiseppe rather than the elaborate calorie-laden sauce that I had been intending to smother the steaks in.

Jack was out and likely to need picking up so I spent the evening pottering about, unable to fix on any one task satisfactorily, bored by the TV, bored by the PC, unwilling to finish my book right there and then because I hadn't found a suitable successor in Tesco and couldn't bear the prospect of going to bed with only the cleaning labels on my pyjamas to read, and unable to mask the passage of time by getting steadily pissed in the Shed so it didn't matter if I read the same page over and over again, partly because the Shed was at sub-Arctic temperatures and partly because I was expecting to have to turn out for Jack and his mates. ( He ultimately arrived home having begged a lift with one of his mate's boyfriends, so I didn't even have the chance to grab a quick fag in the car on the way there).

In the midst of all this ennui, Martian called in his irritatingly cheery tone, smuggly curled up on his sofa watching his new telly, no doubt draped all over Sophie, and sporting a silly hat as he appears want to do from the end of October to late Spring every year. He obviously wasn't ecstatic at the prospect of going to see the seals. Not just any seals but Britain's largest breeding colony of Atlantic Grey seals. The fact that he hadn't particularly been invited would not have registered any significance with him whatsoever. He'd have been welcome, at least as long as he managed not to try and drive from the back seat or he'd have ended up in the boot.

So he's managed to hijack both mine and Sophie's weekend. I'm now under house arrest. I know I could go out and I want to go out and enjoy the sunshine, but the thought of even suggesting it to Jack sends me reaching towards the medicine cabinet. Everyone else will be doing coupley things so I guess the only thing for it is to hide in the shadow of Ironing Mountain until nightfall when I can scurry out and sneak into the back of the cinema to watch the new Harry Potter movie without fear of scaring the kiddies - " Eek! Look, mummy - what's that hideous thing?" " Come away, dears. That's what we call a Spinster, they can be quite bitter, sometimes poisonous, their bark is usually worse than their bite. The latin term is Vacchus Solus Lacrimens Autopiteum".