I spent the last part of this night on the front deck of the Tattersails - a permanently docked barge in central London. Left arm hung over the Thames, right holding a beer. Lift my eyes and look at Parliament House and Big Ben again, illuminated favourably in the low evening light and a mass of high powered bulbs shining from below. The London Eye is to my left, Old Scotland yard is to my right, Trafalgar Square is somewhere behind it. The sky above London is a maelstrom of clouds plated in a constant golden sheen.

Florian and Christie try to convince me to share a taxi home but I decide to catch the tube, as I want some time to read my new book. There's a funky jazz quartet busking outside the Embankment station but I stick my plugs in my ears and listen to Bjork. Walking through the tunnels I pass someone playing the bagpipes, and I want to give him money - it must take skill to make such precise screeching sounds.

Waiting for the train - 15 minutes is an extraordinary long delay - I read my new book. The underground is always draped in a thin black mist, I think its brake pads or something. Nobody here seems to talk.

On the train the two tuxedoed guys opposite me have come from a wedding or ball - one clutches a cheap bottle of Italian red and the other already has pink vomit stains on his collars and cuffs. He's sleeping. After about 5 minutes he begins making drawn out retching noises, his mate tries to calm him down. I watch him vomit a bit of pink - nobody else in the carriage train takes any notice. When the train stops at Kennington the guy clutching the bottle cajoles the catatonic one out the door.

I enjoy the walk home - London is a good place to walk at night. The buildings I pass by are solid uninterrupted blocks of accommodation; series of identical flats, each ridiculously narrow and two storeys high. The more expensive flats have an extended floor going downwards. Everything is bathed in a uniform orange from the street lights. My flat - a small three bedroom affair with no water pressure in the shower, electric stove and small combined kitchen/laundry costs about 2.5K AUD per calendar month. But it's central - only a few other people I know can reasonably walk to work each day.

I get home and Albane is still awake. In the morning she drinks coffee out of a bowl (apparently this is how its done in France). Now she's drinking gin while taking a few slices off a loaf of sourdough. I'm not ready to go to bed so I grab an opened bottle of white out of the fridge and sit down to listen to the financial hardships of coming to London from the Continent.

Albane gets a call, and soon after gets up and heads out to Camden Town. I decide to turn in for the night and head up to my room, where Bob is already settled into his mattress.

Although there is no excuse for being bored in London, you do have to actively look out for things you'd be interested in, because nothing here is so unusual that you could expect to be notified of it. I'm starting to feel as though I'm waiting for something else, though.