Actually, while I'm at it, I could write all about November too. I mean, it's not like I usually find the time to do this, so while I'm sat here in Cologne, having just finished a day of "working from home", I might as well press on...

So, November:

It started with a quick visit to my mate Martin with the unpronounceable surname (which, of course, I can pronounce), then a quick lunch with Johannes, who was back in town to bring Alan to his train. I saw Alan too, but only for about five minutes. Ah well.

The Friday evening was splendid! I was invited to Corinne & Eric's for raclette with Béné, Marie-Laure & Ramón. Much fine wine was consumed - but not TOO much. I actually remember most of the evening this time, which is not something I can say of the last time I was at Corinne's!

I actually had to work at the weekend - yuk! - but still made time to catch up with my mate Oliver on Saturday and my mate Felix on Sunday. The following week I again had dinner with Béné & Bezi, as well as lunch with Michaela. Then Anton & I drove to Stuttgart on business, and on the Thursday night we had dinner in a grubby but delicious Syrian place with Valérie & Melissa.

Back in Munich on the Friday night, I caught up with Marco who was down from Hamburg. I took him along to the 45th anniversary party at the Ochsengarten pub, and a good time was had by all. Even though I didn't get in until 6am, I still had plenty of voice for the choir rehearsal weekend - and enough puff to go for a Thai meal and then to the cinema with Jo to see the new Bond film.

After choir on the Sunday, Jo & I ended up going out on a huge bender! We started in Schall & Rauch, moved on to the Glöcklewirt (where we caught up with Sandi and her esoteric brother), then landed in Kilian's, where we got chatting to some Irish guys and then some Indians. I made it home at 2am. Not bad for a Sunday night!

The next week, I had lunch with Heidrun at Sesto Senso, with Michaela & Jo at Melchers, and with Jo & Dan at Pho Ha Noi. That was on the day of the power cut - yes, we had a huge power cut! And we couldn't do any work either, so we went and played table tennis for an hour!

On the Friday night it was Carmen from choir's birthday, so Jo & I had a cheeky bottle of wine at mine first, then rolled down the hill to her place, and got seriously stuck in to the white wine for the rest of the evening, staggering out again at 4am. OMG!

Saturday was no less alcoholic: after a very sober coffee with Thom from Hamburg at Vits, I went to the Beaujolais Nouveau dinner in a swanky hotel with Béné, Bezi & a few others - then, several bottles of red later, went on to Richard M's Made In Japan party - dressed as a Japanese schoolgirl!

Which all meant I was feeling a little under the weather, shall we say, for Charlie's birthday on the Sunday. But the meal at Roma near their house was tasty, and the afternoon back at M's was lovely and relaxed, with nice chats with Russ & Lisa and the boys.

The next week I met up with Thom again for dinner on the Monday (he was flying home the next day), with Gabe from Buenos Aires on the Tuesday, with Jo for a delicious home-made lamb curry on the Wednesday, with Béné, Corinne, Astrid, Pièrre-Jean, Marie-Laure & Ramón for Mexican food followed by an excellent French play on Thursday, and had Béné round for dinner at mine (turkey breast fillets in a roquefort sauce with a hokkaido squash purée and semmelknödel).

The weekend was - yes, you guessed it - insanely alcoholic again. This time, I was out almost on the Austrian border, just near Passau, in a tiny town called Bad Füssing, for Veronika's 40th birthday. Her sister drove me out there - but it was me who drove us back the next day, as Steffi had had way too much to drink too!

I ended my weekend in a state of calm not just because of the boozy Saturday which left me mostly unable to do anything or even think cogently, but also because of a lovely evening at Christoph's which consisted of eating the gulasch I had cooked (ooh yeah, fantastic), each of us massaging the other for an hour and a half, and then eating the orange crème dessert that Christoph had made (also fabulous).

And then in the last week of November there was just time for lunch at Corso with Christiane, lunch at Pho Ha Noi with Ronald, lunch at the EPO with Michaela & Steen, Stammtisch at Kloster with everyone, a private viewing of the "Magnificent Manuscripts" collection followed by dinner at the Luitpold Café with the Munich Oxford Society, and drinks after choir at the new place that's just opened next door to Da Claudio.

And then I flew to Cologne!!

Helloooo! My October is about to be described in less-than-painstaking detail:

So, I mentioned the all-dayer in the Schottenhamel with Christoph, Lorna, and a bunch of good guys from all over (France, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Croatia)... Good times! Then Lorna & I snuck in to the Löwenbräu tent to catch up with Michaela & Russell, and there we saw the staff swansong for the year, with loads of lighters and sparklers and all the tent lights dimmed. Really cute!

I should also mention, for the sake of completeness, that Johannes from Sydney was up from Salzburg with his cousin and his cousin's girlfriend. And that Mike Young was also over for a bevvy or several - and it was great to catch up with him on the Friday and introduce him to Lorna.

So, the second week of October was unexpectedly eventful: my bike died! It started with the chain snapping, and ended up me being told I was lucky to be alive, as the front wheel could have snapped off at any time! So now I own a shiny new bike that's bright white; I can't wait for it to get a bit mucky, so it's not quite so gleaming...

At the weekend, Jo & I joined Michaela at the Olympiapark to see Russ finish the half-marathon. While I was there I randomly bumped into Petar, Fadil & a friend from Venezuela. After Russ had come in (we totally failed to spot him on the final lap - oops!) and we had finished our cheeky prosecco aperols, we headed into town for a Persian meal, then had a cheeky coffee in my office.

Did I mention that we are now the proud owners of a snazzy chrome proper Italian shiny sexy espresso machine? Hell, yeah! It makes da good shit.

The following week I was at Babette & Sebastian's wedding celebrations on the Monday, out with the guys from work for beers (and freebie Jägermeisters - we got one for each goal Germany scored on the telly - and they scored four times!) on the Tuesday, at Corso for excellent steak tartare with Jo on the Wednesday, at Rubin for excellent ćevapčići with Sigi on Thursday, and in a crazy nightclub in Zurich for Mirèia's birthday with Lisa & Rob on the Friday!

That weekend I caught up with Marie and Matthias (along with Lisa, Rob, Mirèia & David) in an Irish pub, with Ingmar for delicious cheese fondue, and with Patrick for a tiki tour around his home town of Olten. And Mirèia & David cooked a slap-up Japanese dinner for us all on the Sunday night. Wow. What a weekend!

Back in Munich, I caught up with Béné & Bezi at Bezi's, with Felix, with Sigi for his birthday, and with Anton, Ronald & Birgit for Anton's birthday at a delightful French brasserie that I'd never noticed before. And then it was time for another jaunt abroad, this time back to Blighty for Gareth & Gail's wedding.

It was a FANTASTIC weekend! We had all sorts of weather, all sorts of drinks (but particularly elderflower pressé), and all SORTS of food! There was so much food, we could have fed half of Suffolk. But to begin with, it looked like there wasn't going to be any food at all, as Waitrose cocked up the delivery!! Luckily, Gareth managed to get it all sorted, so all of us staying up at Bruisyard Hall were well catered for for the weekend. And it was a riot too! Lots of chats, board games, and lovely lovely times.

Not to mention the wedding itself, which was fabulous!! I was running around like a mad thing taking photos of everyone and everything. I think I got a few good'uns...

I landed back in Munich on the Monday evening to discover that winter had arrived: there was snow everywhere! (We'd had a bit of sleet and some hail in Suffolk, but no proper proper snow.) I headed straight from the airport to Béné's place to have a spot of dinner with her, her brother & their parents.

On Tuesday night I went to a tiny wine bar in Neuhausen with Jo & Steffi to hear a four-piece balalaika band that played amazing gypsy and klezmer music. It was wild! The fiddler looked like death - and I mean, he REALLY looked like some sort of Vitus Dance corpse, he was so lost in the music - but his skills were off the scale. Respect. And the wine was dangerously tasty, too...

On Wednesday night, after choir, I headed to Steinheil with Anja, Bernd & Heidrun to see in Anja's birthday at midnight. We had a proper giggle! And that, my dears, was October.