Last week's highlight was undoubtedly the arrival of my sofas. Something comfortable to sit on after twelve weeks of hard wooden folding chairs. I'm celebrating by having some friends round for dinner on my birthday. Let's hope they don't spill their wine.

With the approach of Christmas social events pile up and I had three outings for food and drink including one with Arkle, a local amateur drama group, where they announced their programme for 2007. The only one that seemed to offer a possible role for me is in the Fringe and I'm not likely to be here to rehearse in time for a Fringe show. However I have been cast in a one-act play that will be the Grads' entry for the SCDA one-act competition in February. I'm playing a Philip Marlowe type private eye. I see it as challenge that will hopefully be helped by some cunning make-up and costume.

The golf course does not beckon in this weather and I've been missing the exercise it offers. I'm not a fan of chlorine laden pools and don't much like swimming anyway so this afternoon I thought I'd try the ice-rink. When I was a kid I loved skating and it came in useful once to get my own back on a lad who bullied me a bit. But during the last 50 years I can only remember skating on a handful of occasions and the last was about twenty years ago so I was very pleased to find that I could get round the ice. I even managed a reasonable turn of speed but essential manoeuvres like avoiding other skaters were more difficult. Skating backwards proved tricky and a nice sideways slide to a halt remained a dream. I can do it on skis why not on skates. One other difference from skiing - ice is a lot harder than snow to fall on. Ouch.

I met up for dinner with some of my former FI/Xansa colleagues about ten days ago. The torch on my mobile phone came in handy to supplement the faintly flickering candles but once the menu had been read we were able let our tired old eyes relax. The food and the company, not to mention the wine were very agreeable. Try The Outsider yourself sometime.

A production of Scrooge starring Ian Aldred who played in Caucasian Chalk Circle provided a very enjoyable musical evening to open the run up to Christmas and the following night I went to a Grads improvisation show. Teams of three or four actors are given a small number of parameters by the audience and have to build a sketch with them. Nine times out of ten they produce amazingly inventive and entertaining results. The first time I saw anything similar was in Paris and I was very sceptical when the friend who was in that group assured me that it was not rehearsed. Now I know that while not rehearsed they do have something of a structure to work in and they practice a lot but that knowledge has not dimmed my admiration. I prefer a nice solid script to work with myself.

The weekend finished for me with a double bill of black and white classics at Filmhouse. Riffifi is a great crime movie with an absorbing dialogue free safe-cracking scene. Morality triumphs since even the best of the baddies dies in the end. Dialogue is the star of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell My Lovely, confusingly called Murder My Sweet in the opening credits. Unfortunately I missed rather a lot of it because I dozed through much of the film. I couldn’t even summarise the plot. Still what I did see and hear was cracking stuff. It’ll be on the tele some wet Sunday I expect.

Had the Dicksonfield Owners and Residents Association AGM been longer I might easily have dozed off but it was very short. There was hardly anybody there and not much business. It’s a pity that something of a festive nature had not been organised. I know that social interaction is not the object of the organisation but maybe socialising would create some community spirit which in turn would help achieve the objectives. I should get off my butt and do something about it I suppose.

On Tuesday I went down to Manchester. It rained cats and dogs almost all the time I was there but I had a good time. The highlight was probably the Royal Exchange'sproduction of Cyrano de Bergerac. It’s an absolute joy of a space and the company always make terrificly good use of it. Proscenium theatre seems so distant and unexciting in comparison. Caucasian Chalk Circle is a good example. Claire extended the use of Adam House’s stage and auditorium as far as I’ve ever seen done but it still wasn’t a patch on theatre in the round for impact.

In addition to visiting Alan the plan was for Karl, in town for a conference, and I to meet up with Pam and Ron, who live in Harrogate, in Leeds for a meal. I made the final arrangements with Karl by email, copying the emails to Ron. Karl and I met, walked briskly to the station and got on the earlier of the trains that I had told Ron to expect us on. I rang his mobile from the train with no joy. They weren’t in Leeds when we arrived and there was still no mobile response. It turned out they were still at home having not read their email for some time. A shame but Karl and I had a good Italian meal and then re-crossed the Pennines.

That was a train ticket I could have done without but at least I got some value from it. Another ticket has proved entirely worthless. I bought tickets for Connor and I to go to the Lakes at Christmas but he is now down south and will travel from there. Virgin refused a refund so I thought I’d try selling them on e-Bay. Blow me but they’ve zapped my listing. Apparently Section 129 of the Railway Act of 1993 makes it a criminal offence for me to sell a ticket. Doesn’t seem fair does it? I’ll just have to wrap them up and give them to Connor for his Christmas.

While in Manchester I spent a wet afternoon in the Museum of Science and Industry looking at lots of fascinating stuff including a demo of various machines involved in the cotton business. I came away with a pocketful of samples of material produced at different stages of the journey from plant to cloth. The evidence of the great wealth generated from the cotton industry is all around in the shape of buildings, not least the Royal Exchange where Cyrano was played, but what a hell on earth for the workers.

I visited the Whitworth Gallery to see an exhibition of wallpaper through the centuries. They claim to have one of the largest collections of wallpaper in the country if not the world but judging by the quantity on display they must be big fish in a small pond. However I liked the wallpaper a lot more than Douglas Gordon’s installations on show at the National Gallery in Edinburgh that I gawped bewildered at in the hour I had to spare before I left for Manchester. That Turner prize has a lot to be ashamed about.