The world has gone baby mad! I thought I was having a mental year of friends getting married, but in fact half my friends seem to be podding left and right. I mentioned Justin & Sam's little girl Grace (who is GORGEOUS by the way!) and Dawn & Rich's little boy Ethan. But in the last week I caught up with Memet & Justyna and their angelic boy Ronin, and to top that Steve & Andrea have just had their third child, Jacob! Well, I suppose I'm in the age group of people having families. I heard recently that 30 is now the average age of a woman in the UK to have her first child. So there you go.

This week I have mostly been getting together with friends in London. First Steve and then Nick & Meena were kind enough to put me up, so I didn't have to pay a tenner for the train from Guildford each day. I feel the need to list the people I have seen:

Monday: Justin & Sam (and Grace!!), followed by a fantastic meet-up in a posh gastropub with Laura & her man Robin, Jezza, Steve and Sam Bunting (whose hippie real first name is in the public domain at last!) who I haven't seen since my 24th birthday party in Leam!

Tuesday: Hugh, Nick & Meena. We did the fitness followed by food thing again, only this time we went to what I have to say is the best tapas bar I've been to in London, called Meson Los Barriles, a few minutes north of Barbican Tube station. If you get the chance, go there!

Wednesday: Julie my friend ex PG and fellow traveller type person (who is temping at the moment to fund future trips - I think I will have to follow suit) and then Memet & Justyna (with lovely Ronin) in the evening. We had a lovely walk around the Canary Wharf area of Docklands and my hypothesis of fifteen years ago has been borne out: now that there are corner shops, supermarkets and - above all - people there, Docklands' imposing architecture has lost its sterility and has become a real living space.

Thursday: John is still having a great time working at Imperial College. He managed to squeeze an hour of his time for me into his schedule of looking after guests from the US, which was great, and he showed me the "delights" of Imperial's '60s reinvention of itself in concrete. This contrasts starkly with what little remains of its 19th century campus, and the glory of the neighbouring Natural History Museum (cool dinosaur skeletons too!). A spot of tennis and a lot of pasta in the evening with Nick (Meena was doing the City lawyer working till midnight thing) followed by Kill Bill Vol 1, which I reckon is as good as Vol 2 which I highly recommend.

Friday: Julie (hurrah! I got to see her again!) and Steve B from PG times for lunch. The blazing hot sun that shone down on me as I waited for them to arrive at St Paul's Cathedral, plus the reminiscing about the four corners of the earth that Ju & I were doing over our pizzas, reminded me why it was that I am still loving this world travel thing. I just can't get enough! Somebody please shove a load of cash into my bank account, so I can keep on doing this for years and years.

The weekend was a time of family. I was at home with Chris, Kate & the girls on Friday night, and brought them to Gatwick on Saturday morning (they are in America for a few weeks). Then on Saturday I picked up Michaela & the boys and took them to Kev & Cath's wedding. What a lovely ceremony! (Although the priest bore more than a passing resemblance to Jonathon King.) And Selena was there too, so I had my real sister and my as-good-as-a sister around me!

On Sunday I took Michaela & the boys to visit Aunty Mary in Welwyn Garden City. We had a pub lunch and talked about family things. I really admire the positive attitude that Aunty Mary has toward life. Yes, she is depressed about her failing eyesight and hearing (which are both very poor now) but she is determined not to let them stop her from getting out and about. After lunch we dropped Aunty Mary off home and I took the others to Stansted. Then I headed down to Justin & Sam's again to go gooey over their baby again, and to drop off some baby clothes that Michaela had brought for them.

Then Monday came, and with it rain showers. These weren't too bad in the London area, but change was inevitable as soon as I was in the plane and over the cloud-bedecked skies of the Irish Sea. It was goodbye sun and hello dank dark dreary desolation. I felt my spirits plummet as we dropped through the cloud bank. And then, to cap it all, bloody British Midland had managed to leave my luggage in London! So here I am in Lisa's parents' house, waiting for my rucksack to be delivered.

Thankfully, my spirits have been revived by catching up with Lisa and Clare, and by some vicarious Southern sunny nature: Mireia & David are here from Zurich, and Mireia's mum and a friend are over from Barcelona, so it's a house full of Catalans and Spanish is our lingua franca.

Well, I think that brings me up to date. It remains only for me to say Okay my blogs are really tedious aren't they? But when I write my book I will extract the gems and polish them, and set them in the compass of my travels, and my memoirs will be a tiara of unusual splendour.