‘Be More Organised’, I said.’Drink Less Alcohol’, I said. [Or did I? Maybe I was supposed to drink as much as I wanted but make sure I went jogging.]

Here is what happened yesterday:

7am. Wake up in panic in a bed in my mother’s house, where I am spending weekend. Have massive suspicion that am going to have hangover. Must not have hangover because, as was fully aware last night, must find motherboard drivers for my mum’s computer – on which I do not know the model of the motherboard – and install them, before 3pm, or entire computer will not work because I have reinstalled Windows cleanly on it and it has eaten all the drivers, which I thought were on the Service Pack 1 CD which I installed on previous day, and which did nothing. But cannot get up now and do it as feel extremely unwell. This is entirely own stupid, stupid fault.

Realise that panicking really makes hangovers feel worse than they actually are, as hangover is partly the nervous system suddenly getting all the body’s shock signals from the period when it was numbed from the alcohol. Attempt to stop panicking. Get up, drink water, find one single, extremely strong painkiller in washbag in bathroom. Go back to bed, feel a bit better, fall asleep.

10am. Woken by twin forces of mother-with-cup-of-tea, and very enthusiastic cat. Cat kindly massages my fragile stomach area with claws. Drink cup of tea. Stroke cat. Feel sick. Get up, make bowl of muesli and go to computer.

10.15am – 1.30pm. Horrible period of Googling bits of serial numbers and names written on the motherboard, downloading software, eating muesli and conferring with Tom over email about what to do. Finally get correct drivers from Service Pack 1 CD, which had told me it was installing them when it hadn’t really. It had not provided the essential information that rather than click ‘install drivers’ and watch it installing something [still unsure as to what] I was really supposed to go through the list and manually install the drivers, of which there were several different ones and no information as to which was the right one. However, through the Googling of motherboard-related things I now know what to do. Computer finds its hardware and devices and the graphics become normal. [This may disappoint mother, who told me she liked how it looked when the graphics card wasn't working.]

1.35pm. Stop panicking and eat some ham.

2pm. Some relatives arrive to have coffee. Have to balance socialising with them, pretending do not have hangover, running Windows Update, sourcing anti-virus software, setting up my mum’s email and packing to go home. Nearly manage this.

3.10pm. Get lift to station. Go to correct platform. Sit in waiting room on own.

3.36pm. Train arrives. Get on it. Phone rings. Is my mother, telling me that I have left the power supply to my MacBook at her house.

3.37pm. Argh! Argh! World goes a bit spinny. How long will battery in MacBook last? What will I do?!

3.38pm. It is arranged that my sister, who was also visiting my mother, will take the power supply to her house in Leeds and I can collect it from her. She is going back there today but not leaving for another hour. I am going back to York, now. Decide will collect power supply tomorrow. Feel very very annoyed with self, as huge waste of time and money.

3.56pm. Arrive Carlisle. Look for my train to Newcastle. See there is a train to Leeds instead! Decide, in amazing moment of genius, to get Leeds train, meet sister in Leeds tonight and collect power supply, and then go on to York from there, as Penrith – York ticket allows either Newcastle or Leeds route to York. Hooray! Am suddenly upgraded to Genius from previous Idiot level.

3.57pm. Run frantically about trying to find platform 6, from which Leeds train will depart at 16.00.

3.59pm. Get on train. Hear two other people discussing whether or not it really is the Leeds train. They seem to think it is, but am made nervous by their doubts.

4.10pm. Become more nervous. Train has not yet left. Four people next to me are merrily talking about embarrassing text-message-related incidents and worrying about the fat content of the cream-covered hot chocolate, chocolate bars and crisps they are eating. A couple are snogging each other’s faces off on the platform.

4.25pm. Man gets on with copy of Daily Mail and starts reading it, two seats in front of me. Cannot help seeing headlines. Am frankly appalled.

4.30pm. Train announcement: ‘Welcome aboard the 16.37  [what? Was sure it said 16.00...] to Leeds, calling at Armathwaite, Lazonby and Kirkoswald, Langwathby .. blah blah, endless list of stations … and Leeds.’ That’s all right then. Can relax.

4.37pm. Train leaves.

4.38pm. Suddenly realise am starving. Eat Fisherman’s Friend as only food present.

4.39pm. Think about Langwathby. This is the station that my sister is getting a train from. There are several stations near my mum’s house, all on different lines. I was taking the train from Penrith, going up to Carlisle, across to Newcastle [where I was possibly supposed to have coffee with a friend] and down to York. Now I am taking a route which meant going up to Carlisle, back down to almost the exact same place I got on in the first place, and on to Leeds and across to York. This is silly. Realise that my sister is likely to get on same train as I am, having left the same place I was staying at but an hour later. Feel slightly stupid about route-planning.

4.40pm. Send text message to sister saying to get on in the last carriage [where I am sitting] as suspect may be on same train, but not to mention this to any family members as will never hear the last of it.

4.45pm. Text friend in Newcastle to say cannot come to Newcastle. Attempt to explain all of the above within the characters allowed in a text message.

4.50pm. Text back from friend apologises for not actually getting the message I sent earlier trying to arrange having coffee in Newcastle, as has been gardening all day and has only just come in because apparently gardening in dark not effective. Consensus is that we are both equally disorganised and will try harder next time.

5.02pm. Sister gets on train. Incredulity and explanation occur. Receive power supply for laptop. Eat a small amount of cake that my sister has with her.

5.05pm – 6.50pm. Watch Will and Grace DVD on my laptop, sharing pair of headphones with one ear each. I stick one one end of another pair of phones in the other ear. This is not plugged into anything, but blocks out the sound of the people having conversations about text messages. Feel much, much better.

7.30pm. Arrive in Leeds.

7.35pm. Say goodbye to sister, who gets on a train back to her specific bit of Leeds. Look for train for me.

7.38pm. Hideous. All trains to York replaced by buses tonight. Then manage to find very last one which is still a train; rush to platform 15b.

7.43pm. Get on train, sit down. Extremely hungry. Consider offering girl opposite me £5 for her bag of prawn cocktail crisps. Decide actually stupid idea.

7.45pm. Train announcement: ‘Welcome on board the 19.47 Transpennine Express service to Middlesbrough, calling at Thirsk, Northallerton …’ Half the population of the train gets up in panic as York has been missed off the announcement; am going to have to get horrible bus after all.. everyone starts getting up to leave.Woman in official jacket yells ‘No! Stay on the train! Get back on!’ at people getting off it.

7.46pm. Slightly embarrassed train announcement: ‘This service will be calling at York. Sorry.’

7.47pm. Everyone settles back down. Consider bursting into tears but decide this would be both unproductive and unEnglish, which would alarm other passengers.

7.48pm. Eat another Fisherman’s Friend.

8.10pm. Train arrives in York. Am met at station by Tom, who has a) a car with him and b) food in the oven at home! Say many appreciative things. May continue to do this for rest of life. Or at least for next week, anyway.

8.30pm. Get home, have shower, take ibruprofen, eat roasted things, look at emails, play some music and have interesting discussion about neurology, muscles and playing instruments.

12 midnight. Check email again, drink valerian tea, collapse in bed and sleep for an extremely long time. Resolve not to leave house ever again.

About five minutes after I wrote the previous post, I managed to trap a part of my hand that I didn’t know could get trapped in things in a part of a door that I didn’t know things could get trapped in. Blood came out and everything. I do not know what is wrong with me.

It is really dangerous putting tights on. I was just doing that, and I managed to rip a chunk of flesh out of my thumb by catching it on my own toenail.

Shortly afterwards I ate a piece of tomato and bit a small hole in the inside of my lip.

Earlier, I had a very long series of bad experiences involving a photocopier which apparently doesn’t work properly when it’s cold.

However, I can’t claim to be having a bad day since I’ve just been asked to do a last-minute ceilidh, and when I got home I ate some gherkins and a pickled chilli pepper, and now I’m having some whisky while the fishfingers cook. I will just have to try not to injure myself on any more parts of my body in order to retain the Not A Bad Day balance.

I know it is considered more appropriate to go and look at things such as the Eiffel Tower, Louvre etc. when on holiday in Paris, but instead I spent my second day indulging in the pleasingly diverse activities of being experimented on in a psycho-acoustic laboratory, and being taught to knit in an upstairs room of a restaurant.

The main thing that concerned me that morning was that I had to go out and Use The Metro On My Own in order to get to Trevor’s workplace to be experimented on. Fortunately this went very well. I said the phrase which Sophy had told me to say in order to get a booklet of ten tickets, and the woman issuing them did not stare, fail to understand or immediately begin to speak to me in English so I must have said it halfway comprehensibly. I rode the metro, changing twice, and arrived at the correct place, at the correct time.

Then I realised that I had been so concerned about whether the metro would work or not that I had made rather a major mistake in another area, which was Forgetting To Bring The Phone Numbers of Everyone I Know In France. Which was not ideal given that I was supposed to phone Trevor when I arrived and meet him at the Pantheon. After much faffing about, phoning other numbers I had for him, texting his girlfriend to get more numbers off her [thanks Kirsty!], phoning things that played recorded music and someone told me in French that I had done something wrong, or just getting a repeated bleep as an answer, I gave up and went to look for a net cafe where I could email people in a panicked kind of way. I failed to find one, but during my search a text message managed to exchange itself between phones belonging to Trevor and myself – since apparently the phone that played the repeated beeps was the right one an that is the French ringing tone – and eventually we found each other and went to eat things in the Jardin de Luxembourg. Apparently he hadn’t had my number either any more. He did once, but the phone it was on [the only number for him that I did have!] had recently been fried. It was all generally a little bit silly.

So, clearly need to wean myself off the internet-dependency, or failing that, get a phone that has the internet on it, since I clearly cannot cope without it.

Anyway, we went to the lab and I had experiments done on me.

Nerdily, I was delighted that the first thing I saw was the same model of mixer that we use in Pillowfish Headquarters:

Just like home...

I then had experiments done on me in a little booth:

Psycho-acoustic guineapig

Trevor did some work while I did this, although in this photo he is not doing any:

We even played a few tunes in the middle of it to stop my brain dissolving due to the repetitive nature of the tests. Fortunately the room is soundproof so nobody came in to see exactly what part of the research this was supposed to be.

In the evening I went to Sophy’s knitting club with her. We CYCLED to the centre of Paris, me on a Velib which a bike you can just hire and then put back at another hire depot thing. Excellent idea but completely terrifying, especially when at a junction I nearly started riding on the left. But we made it unscathed, apart from mild emotional trauma on my part, and I had a really nice glass of wine and knitted this spectacular piece of … erm, knitting:

My entire night's work

According to Sophy and her knitting-friend, Sabrina, this was a very good first attempt, even though it has holes in and appears to be expanding [I started with 20 stitches and by the time I had done the amount depicted, I had somehow developed 29]. Sophy was planning socks with a knitted space invaders pattern on, and Sabrina produced a small bag with a skull and crossbones pattern knitted into it. I clearly have a long way to go…