May 29. Monday.

Holly drove me to the coach (bus) in the morning—we bid a fond farewell but I will be seeing her in Spain again luckily—and I took it to the London Victoria coach station, where I changed to another bus to Golders Green. I had a little scare because I couldn’t see the gate announcement for my connection, and had to stand in a very long information queue, and the time was ticking away, but I did make my connection on time.

On the bus ride I spent all the time editing a book that someone asked me to help edit. At the other end I was picked up by Debbie Fisher, who was kind enough to offer to put me up, even though she could not make it to the workshop tomorrow. I didn’t know Debbie, but she turned out to be really nice. She made me a healthy dinner in her nice home, and then she offered to have me go to a play with her and her son. I didn’t really want to go because I was tired, but I was intrigued by the type of play it was, “Occupational Hazards,” the true story about Rory Stewart’s attempt to help govern a province in southern Iraq after the Iraq war, which did not work out, despite his best efforts. So I did go. I actually thought being invited meant there would be no cost for the ticket, and the ticket was more expensive than I would have liked, and the play was pretty good, but through no fault of the play I ended up falling asleep in it about three quarters of the way through it, I was so exhausted. So once I got home, I couldn’t wait to go to sleep. But Debbie and I had a nice talk.