Surfer dude in the house

In the bath actually, soaking off 10 days worth of camping/travelling grime. Always a relief to have him back safe and sound (although a pain in the arse to have to trek up to Porthtowan to pick him at ten o'clock – the last thing I wanted to be doing after a long and tiring day).

Managed to co-ordinate a lift with Jacquie to Falmouth for today, and hopefully every Tuesday, which resolves the potential transport difficulty I was worried about. Won't need to rely on my clapped out old beast (sorry Rusty) to get me there. Besides, it's so nice to be driven/be a passenger – being able to just sit there and chat, rather than having to concentrate on the road the whole time. I hate driving, so happy to get out of it at any opportunity.

Spent an unrewarding 3 hours in the computer room, researching the US Amazon website; time-consuming, but with so little to show for it. Should really be focusing on preparing my presentation for Thursday, but just can't seem to get my head round the idea. Expect it'll be a last minute panic tomorrow night, where I'll have to stay up for hours, as I won't be getting back from band practise til way after midnight for starters.

Enjoyed the features class. Martin, our tutor, seems to know his stuff, and is a likable enough guy. Frea and Jen delivered a top-class expose on women's weekly magazines – complete with accompanying hand-outs and cake! Will be a hard act to follow that's for sure. Have to come up with a feature idea and a specific market for it by tomorrow – to be researched and written by midday on Monday. Annoyingly, it can be on any topic of our choice – too much choice makes it so much harder. That's the thing I'm most worried about – trying to come up with lots of good ideas. Expect it'll get easier as the course progresses, but for now, I just can't seem to think of anything!

Quick turn around when I got home to cook dinner, then rush off to the Arts Club. Always nice there because of the open fire, but it makes staying awake real tricky. Collected the kids from scouts, dropping Neil's kids off along the way, which was when I then had to zoom off to fetch Eddie.

He's caught the sun – looks really brown – and by all accounts, had a wicked time (one would hope so). Weather was plenty warm enough for camping which was just as well. Made me laugh when he told me that he and Seth ended up doing all the cooking – should insist he does his stint in the kitchen here perhaps. His clothes reeked of woodsmoke, so I was imagining them all sat round the fire at night, chilling after a hard day's surf. Idyllic. Most people never get to experience such things in their whole lives, and here he is, a seasoned, veteran traveller, at eighteen. Lucky bugger.

Surprised that they only went out on the town for one night, but I guess that was a combination of being both skint and knackered. And was appalled to hear that they trashed their hire car (accidentally). Fortunately, it was covered by the insurance, and no-one hurt, just the car bottoming out badly on rough dirt tracks, with oil pissing out everywhere.

Back to Truro college in the morning, via the doctors as he has some kind of weird, nasty ear infection, so back to the real world with a thump. Look forward to seeing the photos though at some point.