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Senior Officers' Dinner at the Town Hall last night. Getting everyone in the Mayor's Parlour for pre-dinner drinks was a real squash; after joining my mother in saying obligatory hellos to everyone, I drifted over to a corner, where before long Austin and Carol took refuge with me, so we all passed the time talking until Austin battled his way through the crush to get to the drink trolley and, just after that, John announced that dinner was about to be served and my mother and I led everyone into the Council Chamber.

I was next to Joanna, wife of a Brigadier. She wasn't much older than me, and we got on quite well, mostly talking about various parts of Hampshire we'd each visited. The caterers had done us proud; the grub - Caribbean chicken salad, slow-roasted Mediterranean lamb, and amaretto mousse - was definitely up there in the top five best meals we've had all through our Mayoral term. After the formalities of speeches from the Commodore and my mother, we were all brought cheese and crackers and allowed to relax and move around freely. John left the port on a sideboard for us all to help ourselves; I got through five glasses before the end of the evening, as well as generously partaking of the cheese. Liz, wife of one of the top Naval men, stopped me on my way back from one of my cheese forages and told me how great my mother and I both are and how much she's going to miss us when we leave office in May. Awww.

From about 10.30 pm people began to leave couple by couple, till we were left alone with the staff just before 11. Jan, Michelle and John piled all the leftover cheese (there was plenty) into a couple of big Tupperware containers for us to take home :)

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Chief Scout's Awards today. A nice easy one - all I had to do was sit on a chair on the stage while award-winning Scouts came up one by one to be presented with certificates by my mother. At the end of the ceremony it took several minutes to organise a group photo, then it was into a neighbouring hall for a buffet. There were loads of paper bowls of peanuts on offer :D One guy, father of one of the award-winning Scouts, engaged me in conversation about my civic duties and my working life outside them. He turned out to be a football fan - he followed Portsmouth, although he hadn't been to a game for ages. When we got talking to the Scout leaders we mentioned that I'm a great fan of the Gosport Gang Show, which went down well. As things wound down, there were loads of leftovers still on the table. My mother had told the lady leaders earlier about my fondness for Twiglets, so as we waited for John to arrive one of the lady leaders said to us "No going home till all the Twiglets are eaten!" So my mother, a Scout called Lawrence and I polished the Twiglets off between us.

Home for Middlesbrough v Man Utd.

Just watched Celeb FA3 (first time I've had the chance since the opening show) - Jade texted me during Colin's brilliant rendition of Green Day's Good Riddance to ask if I was watching and to say she fancied Colin! I replied, saying I fancy Mel. Keeping everything crossed for her...