So, that was a slightly odd weekend. Up until about 7pm on Saturday night I had every intention of going to doseybat's birthday party in Purley. I had planned this extensively, checking various map sites and the AA route finder before deciding that it would definitely be better to nip round the right-hand edge of the M25 than to slog across London on four separate trains, and I was rather looking forward to proving to myself that I can deliberately take my car inside the mystic barrier of the M25 without anything terrible happening to me or it.

Unfortunately (or so it seemed) I slept appallingly on Friday night, so on Saturday I decided I really wasn't in a fit state to drive for two hours to get to a party, and certainly wouldn't be in a fit state to drive home again when I started getting sleepy. Luckily, I knew Richard B was also planning to drive to the same party, so I rang him up and arranged to get a lift.

So at 6:30 he picked me up, we drove back down to his place to collect Louise, and at 7pm we got back into the car to open up maps. Imagine my surprise at this point when he looked puzzled at my choice of map page and told me we weren't going to Purley at all, but to Leytonstone!

Apparently the location of the party was changed some time ago. Since doseybat didn't have my email address, she'd asked yvesilena to forward me the invitation, which she did, and also asked her to forward me the notice of change of location – which she didn't. So it was a good job I was too sleepy to drive, or I would have ended up in Purley feeling very annoyed!

(Earlier in the week, once I'd decided to drive to the party, I had phoned up the_alchemist to offer her a lift since she lives very near me. She sounded terribly confused on the phone when I jabbered about parties in Purley – and now I think I might understand why!)

Still. Reasonably fun party, anyway. Other highlights of the weekend included drswirly's birthday party on Friday night, but that was exactly where I expected it to be so it wasn't nearly so interesting :-)

Oh yes. And I finally found the front panel of my old car stereo! After a rather ridiculous seven weeks of being lost, it finally turned up in the rear footwell behind the driver's seat. I'm sure I looked there twice, since it's the absolutely obvious place for it to have been (I must have reached behind me to put it in the front-panel-box pocket on the back of the driver's seat, missed the pocket and dropped it on the floor as I do frequently); clearly I should have looked there three times. Bah. Still, at least that means I can sell the thing on to hoiho as I'd initially intended. If he still wants it, of course, and hasn't found a replacement in the intervening time…

In other news, I seem to have given myself a paper cut under my thumbnail. On my spacebar thumb. OW.