Just returned from a weekend with friends I’ve known since I was 13, which is too far back to count the years suffice to say it’s about 37. And I’m pleased to report that they and me are all as daft as we were back when we first met, with aches and pains, both mental and physical.

A weekend of frothy ale, wholesome local pub grub, some clay pigeon shooting, I got 5 out of 24, 3 lots of 8 bullets. The first lot I hit nothing and there were corduroy wearing wax jacketed farming types looking on as the outsiders came in and thoroughly embarrassed themselves, it’s hard, shooting things doesn’t come naturally it seems, so don’t ask me to help you hold up the spar in Hemyock, chances are I’d be caught before leaving the valley, due to a) being a stranger and b) not having a clue how the roads work. There’s a really narrow road near my mates with a dead end sign on both ends of it, turns out it’s a short cut and the locals kept the signs up to stop strangers snooping around.

But I Concur with the opinion that you don’t need millions of mates you need a select few, especially as you age, I’ve got some lovely new mates, here in the highlands, and some old ones down in the forested lowlands I’ve got some fantastic Uni mates and my old school mates whom I just saw. But as you get older you tend to lose things more often, this time it’s my wallet, been out to the car 4 times tonight in the pissing darkness and looked but not terribly closely, as I was spending too much time being cross and huffing about.

I’m going to get some sleep