Do you ever get those days where you can’t quite make up your mind what to do? Paralysed by choice I finally settle on walking into my local town centre, hoping that the walk will give me some clarity. It’s a bright, cold January day.

As I walk down the street I replay the weekend in my head. I had been invited to dinner by A, who I’ve known vaguely for a few years. I feel just a little bit anxious as I don’t know this guy well, so what will we talk about I wonder? I reassure myself that it will be fine. I have a bag full of ingredients because I’m cooking sticky toffee pudding and A is doing the main course, though claims to be no cook. (A claim that later proves to be not entirely true).

When I arrive at his flat I take a lift to the top floor. I love the view. The city lights sprawl before us and we can see for miles. I point out illuminated landmarks lit up like jewels in the charcoal night. Before I begin to cook (the main course is almost done), I show A my new tattoo. Without any hesitation he whips off his t-shirt and shows me his.

I cook and stir and A smokes a cigarette. As the pudding bakes in the oven, we sit in the lounge and talk about poetry. A writes and he goes and gets me an aged note book full of poems he wrote years ago in Greek, his native tongue. I look through this beautiful, delicate object decorated with pictures and full of cyphers I can’t understand. I ask him if he will read one of the poems to me, in English, knowing that I’m asking a lot. Showing your own work to someone for the first time is, as Simon Armitage says, a lot like taking your clothes off in front of a new lover, fraught with vulnerabilities and exposing.

A reads. I listen. I’m transfixed. It’s a deeply personal poem and although he says that in Greek these words play with language, it’s difficult to translate that into English, even though A’s English is perfect. I suppose the nuances of my language are the things that get lost in translation. He says that he would like his work translated properly so I suggest that he emails one of his poems to me and I’ll give it a go, but I quickly add that I might not be able to do it because already the complexity of his work is very apparent.

Yesterday he emailed a poem over to me, even in imperfect English, the sentiment of it is so beautiful it makes me feel moved.

When I finish reading A’s poem, I realise that I’m feeling so honoured that he would share this with me. I don’t know if I can play with it and do it any sort of lexical justice but I will give it a go over the next couple of days. It’s the least I can do to return the favour. I cannot share my poems with A (though I might at some point), because I feel that mine are crude and immature compared to his.

I cross the street, wondering why the traffic is quiet, usually this is a really busy junction. I realise that I can hear horses hooves and as I look up the hill I see a funeral cortege complete with Victorian horse-drawn carriage. Suddenly, being alive is a beautiful prospect, off-set by the tragedy that death brings. A’s poem highlights the very slight dividing line between the two conditions, they are so close yet mercifully so very far away from each other.

Right before I log off, I need to congratulate myself. I have just bought the nicest saucony running shoes that I have ever owned. Parks Marathon, here I come!

I wonder why it is that we have such a strange way of doing things in the British legal system? Surely it is different in other countries. For example, if you get a life sentence in America, then it is ninety-nine years. In this country it seems to mean anything from 15 to 30 years, depending on the severity of the crime. When you think about it in this way it seems a little bit silly to call it a ‘life sentence’, doesn’t it? I just can’t get my head round it.

The other thing about prison sentences that I really don’t understand is how they are automatically reduced. If someone is sentenced to 10 years then they only serve 6 or 7. Where is the logic in that? Why doesn’t the judge just give them a stretch of 6 or 7 years to begin with? Where the hell does the ‘10’ come into it? It’s a wonder you don’t get a lot of very confused criminals in the dock…

And what is it with all of the silly clothes in the legal system? Is the defendant allowed to get dolled-up in a wig and flowing gown or is that only something that magistrates can do? I wonder if they always wear the same fancy dress for their hearings? Perhaps, when they feel like having a change, they all dress up as cat-suited Elvis’s or giant pilchards instead. Well! It is a tad on the silly side. After all, this is the twenty-first century that we are living in… And I wonder if they even wash those wigs; I do hope so or they’ll end up smelling very musty!

It is all a bit bizarre, isn’t it? But there are lots of things in the world that just do not make any sense…

Just before I go, I was speaking to my brother who works in investments and he thinks that there is massive money in buying stocks for kerosene oil. I think this is because of the insanely cold winter that we have been having lately….

I have just finished leafing through this year’s Christmas Radio Times. There normally isn’t a great array of programmes or films that instantly appeal to me over the festive period, but I have just found something that looks rather promising.

The BBC has made a new adaption of John Wyndham’s, ‘The Day of the Triffids’. It is being shown in two ninety minute parts. This is one of my favourite books of all time so I’m really looking forward to watching it. Please don’t let them make a hash of it. The worst case scenario, for me, is if they go and turn it into a showcase for the ludicrous amount of money they spend on CGIs. Much like what they have done with the new Dr. Who really…

I can remember when they did their last dramatisation of ‘The Day of the Triffids’ in the eighties. I was a kid and it was one of the best programmes I’d ever seen! I loved the whole idea of only a few people being able to see and having to fight for survival against a legion of killer plants.

Mind you, this is probably just a case of remembering television programmes through a rose tinted 22” screen… If I watched the last series of it now, then the chances are that it would be hopelessly dated and probably even laughable.

Sometimes it is best to just have a blurry memory of things. If you hunt them down and drag them back out into the light then it is often a very disappointing business. I know this because there have been other things from the past that I have seen again in more recent years. Ninety-nine percent of the time they just don’t cut the mustard anymore. If you leave things in your memory then they will always be magical to you.

Before I go all of you, I have a new bit of news about the ski holidays bookings for our Christmas trip. I need part of the cost by this weekend.