A/N I can provide examples for all ski jumpers mentioned, don't want to offend anyone.

Hello to you, and I must say it's nice to have the company, Gary's away in Prague on a stag do. I wouldn't have stopped him going, naturally, but I do think that trying to justify it by saying he wanted to try the local restaurants was taking it a bit too far. I'm pretty sure that the only thing they would eat all weekend was fast food. He seems to think I've never been away with friends.

It's not going well so far, I treated myself to a Midsomer Murders marathon and a takeaway, and stayed up later than I normally would. Let's just say Stevie wasn't too pleased to find me in my pjs eating cold egg fried rice for breakfast (I had overordered as usual) at half 11.
"Oh no, this is not going to be a repeat of Hong Kong, have a shower and make yourself presentable you're running the shop this afternoon." I had spent a week wallowing after he left last time.
"I've got a dentist's appointment, if you're not downstairs by 12 I will physically drag you."

Tilly came round to see me, supposedly to cheer me up, but as usual made me feel worse. So now we're going out for lunch tomorrow, and to make things worse, mum came in and invited herself along. Such fun.

Stevie's plan to cheer me up, I did say leave to leave me be, was karaoke. Unfortunately her dentist appointment involved a local anaesthetic which hadn't quite worn off yet, so she couldn't really song properly which certainly made our performance unique. It did wear off eventually but by then the wine had started to take effect and she wasn't really intelligible the whole night. She had also got quite friendly with a group of students, and invited them to a party, it was a party I didn't know I was throwing. It took a long time and many bribes with drinks to persuade them to find somewhere else to go.

I was woken the next morning by my phone going off at least 10 times it's usual volume, or so it seemed.
"Queen Kong, where are you? We've been waiting for at least half an hour."
"I'm not coming, I don't feel very well." Of course I didn't tell her how self inflicted it was. "And don't tell mum or she'll make a fuss. I think it's a 24 hour thing. I'll be fine." When I hung up I noticed that I had an email from Gary.

'Hi, just to let you know we arrived OK. Despite Goose's navigating, which meant we went to every Holiday Inn in the city, some twice, before we found the right one. Those of us who had been in work all day (well me and Ryan) decided to forgo the trip to a bar. This turned out to be a good idea, as Goose was navigating again, and they arrived back as we were going for breakfast.
Spent the day exploring the city, very nice, good food too, tell you the rest when I get home.

Gary xxx
P.S. Doing a bungee jump this afternoon, scary.
P.P.S. Sounds like a great night
P.P.P.S. Don't think observatating is a word, but don't have a dictionary to hand.'

How did he know about that? I rather nervously went to my outbox where I found an incredibly drunken and rambling email professing my love for him, Stevie, wine, karaoke and the world in general. My hangover suddenly seemed to get worse.

When I woke up again a couple of hours later I decided that a bath, a cup of tea and continuing the Midsomer Murders marathon would be the best course of action, to be frivolous, I might even order a pizza.

Things aren't exactly going to plan so far. I was relaxing in the bath as you do, when I heard a strange sound like a key being turned in the lock. I put it out of my mind as the pipes gurgling. When I head the distinctive sound of the washing machine I was both a little scared and a little confused. I don't think the first priority of most intruders is to do the washing, but you never know.

I decided to confront the intruder so I put my dressing gown on and grabbed the 2 nearest I could use as weapons and burst out of the room in what I hoped was an intimidating way and shouted.
"I am a woman and I am armed, get out immediately!"
This was met with a very familiar laugh.
"And what are you armed with?" Asked a very startled Gary. "A loofah and?" He said unrolling the magazine. "Good Housekeeping, didn't think you read that sort of thing, and I'd better be careful with these, very dangerous."
"It isn't mine, think mum must have left it the last time she spilt up with dad."

The conversation as to why he was back so soon was postponed until I had got dressed properly and he had ordered the pizza.
"I'm sorry if I scared you, it was a bit of a last minute decision, less a decision, more an incident involving a fire extinguisher."
"You didn't?"
"No, not me, Goose, Chris and Watson got a little frustrated that the only channel their TV got showed ski jumping, so after a couple of beers, OK probably a couple of dozen, they decided to smash it with a fire extinguisher."
"Why didn't you find another hotel?"
"We're, as a group, on some sort of blacklist, so sorry I won't be taking you there anytime soon. And anyway wasn't that boring, I ended up watching when I couldn't sleep, their were lots of people with unpronounceable names, but a day of a half of it in Czech, possibly get a bit repetitive."
"You should commentate on it in the Winter Olympics, I'm dazzled by your knowledge."
"'And on the red button, Gary Preston, the vague commentator with the ski jumping highlights.' The winner was an Austrian with a very long and complicated surname, in second was the Polish man with an unpronounceable name and in 3rd was a Norwegian I think was called Anders."
"I'm very impressed, so informative, it would be a shame if you didn't get the job."
"If you're going to be sarcastic, I'm going back to mine and taking the pizzas with me." With almost perfect timing the doorbell rang.
"I'll get them, I don't trust you." I said, blowing him a kiss.