I am in Chester. My car is due its MOT and poking through the sales seems marginally preferable to sitting in the Kwikfit waiting room. It is the last day of my thirties <doomy music> and I am hoping to find something to wear to my party that makes me look a. slim (tricky, this close to Christmas) and b. young (tricky, see above). The sales are full of tat and I am exacting, as while it must fulfil criteria a and b, it must not look as though it is trying to – nothing that screams “skimming over problem areas” thankyouverymuch.

The clock in the photograph is Chester’s landmark. Everybody knows it is the second most photographed clock in Britain, even if nobody can tell you how they know or, indeed, if it is true and how that is monitored. It’s a funny old town city, Chester, all furcoatnoknickers (especially on race day) and bitter over its lack of, well, anything much unless you are really into Romans. We suffer from being too close to Liverpool and Manchester and they get all the good stuff <sulk>.

I have bumped into two people I know, which is always nice, and had a coffee in pret, where I read a chapter of not buying it. The car passed.