Rather than go straight into town after work yesterday I left a little early and went home to put up the tent in the garden. with the door facing away from the driveway it felt very private inside, which was exactly the feeling I was going for. It was also the first time I've put the tent up on my own, strangely. Still, having helped put up about seven almost identical ones (sometimes on my own) at the Peterborough Regatta just a few weeks previously it didn't take too long, even in the heat. I was perspiring quite heavily afterwards, especially after I'd humped down rollmats, blankets, towels, a duvet and pillows to make it a reasonable place to sleep. After a quick shower and a change into smart clothes I rushed off to get into town in time to meet Kris and pretend I'd come straight from work. Having to turn back and get the voucher for Loch Fyne meant I had to cycle even faster to get to the bar in time. Luckily she was a little late so I could mop most of me dry and try to look at least a little debonair.

We had a lovely cocktail each sitting on high bar chairs and chatting about the day and then wandered down the street to the Loch Fyne restaurant where we devoured the appetiser bread in minutes as we sat in the outside seating area enjoying the shade and the hum of quiet conversation around us. The starters and mains (I had my first ever oyster, opinion: salty) were delicious, as was the single glass of wine I had (more alcohol in one night than I think I've had in the last three months). We walked and then cycled home to give ourselves time to digest, chatting and smiling all the while until Kris noticed the tent in the garden. Cue excited noises and a happy lady. After plenty of water to drink we retired to the tent for the night.

While a perfect evening, the thing about sleeping on the floor is that it can never be as comfortable as an expensive mattress (which is what I have, told as I was by a clever person a long time ago that given the amount of time you spend in bed a good mattress is essential to a happy life). As a result I didn't sleep terrifically well, but I was lovely and cool. It also rained in the night, which is always great to experience from inside a waterproof tent.

After waking for the last time this morning we enjoyed the feeling of the great outdoors before getting up and on with our days. Kris stayed home today to put on the inordinate amount of washing we appear to have accumulated in the last week (I blame the heat and lots of exercise). I headed into work where I spent a little bit of time working on an XML + SSL + Flash + IE issue which I've been looking at on and off since the beginning of March. During my 8km run in what turned out to be much cooler weather (more rain too, which was lovely) someone I'd mentioned the problem to came up with a URL which allowed me to create a two-line 'response' rule for our Zeus ZXTM load balancers to set the Cache-Control and Pragma headers to useful values. With that one minute's worth of work: success! Hurrah for me (and people on the web who had already run into and solved the same problem in another guise or two). That, coupled with the previous 12 hours and the minute or so I took off my 8km time has made for a very good day.

I'm now just half an hour away from going home, doing a bit of housework and then going out for a row in what should be a rather good 4+ outing with some better-than-usual rowers. Roast chicken and potatoes for dinner... and then it's the weekend on top of that! I might just go and see the new Transformers film while Kris is at a girly night tomorrow. No rowing on account of many of the club heading down to see the Henley Royal Regatta tomorrow and Sunday. I think I'll get some cycling in.

Tell a lie, it's Friday! I'm out of here in five minutes!