Of late, I’ve been a bit distracted. I’m going to have to blame it on being ill. My illness might be something to do with looking for a house, I’m not too sure.

So imagine my suprise (actually, now that I’ve prewarned you, it won’t be so much of a suprise) when I got a phone call from my dear friends at egg telling me that I’d lost my wallet.

I assured him I hadn’t lost my wallet at all. I knew it was safely tucked away in my coat. Then I realised he was right, I had lost my wallet. Kerfuffle. He kindly told me that my wallet had been found and I could find it at Eastern station. But where is Eastern station I asked? Eggy had no idea, he just knew it was there.

Any learned Londoner will tell you there is no such thing as Eastern Station. So being the intelligent person that I am, I deduced that it must be at Euston station, a station sounding a bit like Eastern, but clearly being very different.

And there it was, my beloved was at the lost property counter, waiting for me patiently, like a well trained pup. However, just as I was about to be terribly thankful, I discovered that it was a big trick. They wouldn’t give me back my wallet until I’d paid three pounds. How rude I thought - surely this is blackmail - you can have your wallet back, the wallet that is yours and we know is yours, if you give us three pounds.

Apparently it was ok though, it was written on a sign on the wall - three pounds. So there it was, I paid three pounds for the return of my wallet and the person who returned it didn’t even get a penny.

Until they get to heaven.

To add to the list of lost and found. I lost my wedding ring. But now, it is found. Amazing Grace!

R&B- (525), originally uploaded by nipto.

Some people have suggested that this photo was set up.

It wasn’t at all.

If I was really genuinely homeless, that would be a very sad situation indeed. I’m just one step away though, really homeless, but without the genuine bit.

Today we made a ‘best and final sealed bid’ for a property in Paradise Road. Paradise isn’t the place where we’ll be spending eternity, or at least the next few years because we were outbid and pipped to the post by a small matter of 5k. I’m not sure it was really worth the extra 5k but in a few months time, when we’re still looking, it may well be.

Quandry indeed. At least we’ve still got somewhere to live, even if it isn’t so much of a home. The future is of course bright, and very orange as we’ve got a few viewings lined up for the weekend with one of our favourite estate agents - Sonia from Movingspace. She’s what you might call ‘edgy’, and is certainly a refreshing change from Foxtons shmooze with her raw analysis of the properties we were surveying. Sonia’s the person to know.

In my juvenile arrogance I thought that perhaps the cinemas had spelt happiness incorrectly. They hadn’t and it was entirely deliberate. Was it really necessary though? Maybe.

I think this is a question worth posing due to a recent clown encounter I had while watching Cirque de Soleil’s Allegria on Saturday. As you might imagine, whilst the rest of the show was truly brilliant, and culminated spectacularly with some insane trapezing. But the clowns - they verged on irritating.

If perhaps I’d bought the programme I might have discovered that Alegría is a mood, a state of mind. The themes of the show, whose name means “jubilation” in Spanish, are many. Power and the handing down of power over time, the evolution from ancient monarchies to modern democracies, old age, youth—it is against this backdrop that the characters of Alegría play out their lives. Kings’ fools, minstrels, beggars, old aristocrats and children make up its universe, along with the clowns, who alone are able to resist the passing of time and the social transformations that accompany it.

Jeepers. So that was it. The clowns are cleverly resisting the passing of time and the social transformations. How did I not get that? OK, I think I’ve got it - because the clowns are boring, time seems to pass really slowly while they’re playing Laurel and Hardy and thus they’re resisting the passing of time. Genius.

I don’t get it though. I didn’t realise it was about power. Power and jubilation. Right.

And in many ways I’m thankful that it’s not my own.

Now that I’m a married man I suppose it’s just the sort of extraneous object that one finds oneself inadvertently in posession of - after all, you can now put me in the box ‘recently married, reasonably settled and responsible’.

Even I would question the last assumption but nevertheless, it was made, and so I found myself in posession of a seven month old baby whose name I didn’t even know (it was Dutch and unpronouncable).

After the mother rather tentatively made her exit, Rebecca and I found ourselves standing in a stunned silence, not quite sure what we’d let ourselves into with our less than limited experience of dealing with babies.

The great thing about small children is that they find the most boring things the most entertaining. And so it was, that after a generous half hours wimpering and griping, the small child (let’s call her Beatrice) became fascinated by a box. This suited me perfectly as I soon discovered, as any babysitter worth their salt would, that I could watch TV whilst cleverly propping her up with a well positioned knee, safe in the knowledge that I wasn’t neglecting babysitting duties.

I wasn’t quite sure about feeding ettiquette so after a bit of a discussion, Beatrice and I came to some kind of an agreement that she could play with the box and enjoy her lukewarm milk simultaneously. This was obviously after she’d rejected my suggestion that she should sit down to eat/drink.

Rebecca took over soon after, nurturing those mothering instincts with great trepidation but somehow getting Beatrice to sleep - with no small thanks going to the assortment of plush pieces she’d brought back from Disneyville.

In conclusion, small children are great for a short time but I have found them to be all too limiting on getting on with things. That’s about it really.