Absent falling coal

... very big thank you to whoever it was who left chocolate in my pidge this morning (or possibly even last night - I found it this morning). You are lovely, whoever you are, and deserve lovely people to be lovely to you, and I am very very grateful.

Walking down Broad Street on my way to Blackwells, I heard shouts behind me calling my name.

I turned round, and saw a blonde girl dashing up to me, saying, "I just spotted you, we were at school together - Dodger?"

I'd recognised her straight away, she was 4 years below me and played oboe with me in orchestra and was, as she rightly pointed out, the Artful Dodger to my Mr Bumble. I suppose I should be grateful she didn't yell that out down the street, I think I'd have still turned round to it!

Like me, she was a huge geek, doing Latin A-level; she's on a gap year now, going to Paris later in the year, and then to Cambridge to study English.

It was terribly lovely, and somehow, terribly Oxford - of course, a perfectly logical place to bump into her.

Apologies to anyone who got snapped at earlier - I was headachy and tired and things were spinning just a little but we don't think about that.

I'm fine now - well, still headachy and weary, but in a better mood. I cooked food, and ate food while watching Firefly.

Somehow, Firefly always makes everything OK. Partly because it's brilliant and I love it, partly because it reminds me of some of the people I love best (you know who you are), partly because... it just does.

I think I'm going to write some more and then go to bed. There's more time left this month than I'm letting myself believe, even with people coming to stay and me going back to Oxford/Cambridge - and everything's going to be just fine - because somehow, it always is, in the end.

And if it's not - well, it's just not the end.