Another weekend, another night out nowhere near The 'Bridge. I phoned James on Friday to ask a question about travel dates and ended up driving to Bath on Saturday morning. Another spur-of-the-moment visit, but all together worth it, although he still hasn't answered the bloody question.

Anyway, I arrived at Bath rugby ground just in time for kick off and to meet the first of four billion Bath students I was to have conversations with over the two days. It was the first time I had met Paul who had been travelling with James and Heather in New Zealand just before I had taken his place in Oz. For the duration of the ill-fated match I was sat next to Claire and Car (sp?), the only Neith supporters (Clarie wearing her bright red Wales top) in the whole of the stand. It was a good game, although not necessarily for Bath who came oh-so-lose to making a recovery, but in the end were let down by poor kicking and being the weaker side.

Two beers in and I could already feel the effect, which indicated to me that I really needed some lunch and so happily agreed to some post-match Wetherspoons. Heather popped up out of nowhere and after food we walked back to James' where preparations were going on for his house party. Apparently I had picked a good night; Bath was hosting at least three house parties, and James instructed me that we would be visiting all three. After making myself useful (by shifting ridiculous numbers of bottles of red wine out of the way, and being introduced to a second slew of people, mostly housemates and friends of housemates) it was eventually time for the guests to arrive.

Despite protestations by the other housemates etc (Andrew, Jen, Jack, Sarah, Nicole, Ruth et al) that James was deserting his own party, we went to Joe's house for party number two. House party number two was clearly not going to be a standard event. Firstly, to both our surprises, Joe wasn't there, nor was he in Bath at all. Instead the evening was being hosted by remaining housemates Marcella and Dave, who had organised what was billed as 'speed dating', but initially looked to be 'speed segregation' as we were quickly reprimanded for speaking to the girls when they arrived and soon all the blokes in ended up in the kitchen, and all the girls in the lounge.

After a worrying wait when the blokes were outnumbering the girls nearly 2:1 there was a sudden influx of females and the numbers balanced. Now, I have to admit the idea of speed dating has never really appealed to me, but there seemed little other option and I was actually quite curious. It was made all the better when it turned out that the girls were not exactly disappointing. What was quite amusing was that I was probably the only person there who genuinely didn't know anyone else. Speed dates got underway.

Probably one of the most entertaining things I've done at a party, it certainly made for a good time and despite it all being over very, very quickly, Dave and Marcella had done a great job of organising it. Challenges set in certain rounds made it all the more amusing, and despite being a person who isn't keen on the pickup line tradition, it all got unbearably cheesy at times.

We made our excuses and left pretty smartly before results had been posted, as James had promised we'd be back at his house party within an hour. By this time the chocolate fountain (poncey, but not a bad shout) had all but been consumed and I spent the next part of the night coming across even more people (Sara, Re, Uncle Ian, Fran etc etc), drinking Cherry kirsch and talking biscuits for a couple of hours before we had to head over to Paul's for his housemate's birthday party.

In the process of getting over there Uncle Ian managed to sprain his ankle and James decided he was too drunk, so we only stayed ten minutes before heading back and rejoining the party where there were even more introductions (Helena, Dougal etc etc), beer, kirsch, gratuitous dancing and appalling flirtation.

I woke up feeling alright considering. In true pathetic style and to much praise from his housemates James had managed to hoover and clean most of the kitchen by 9am. The process had started the night before at around 4am while the music was still pounding, but due to the complex nature of recycling he'd been stopped and sent to bed. No stopping James though, it was spick and span by the time bacon butties had even been considered.

To recover there was a double bill of pre-recorded X-Factor (apparently Bath is hooked) and then into town for a reconstituted roast chicken lunch before I needed to head to the station to catch the only train of the day that was going to take under five hours to get me home. En route we bumped into Heather again and spent my remaining twenty minutes in Bath looking at shoes, which in retrospect, was highly predictable.

All in all an awesome time, and has only proven again that spontaneity is the best way to good weekends.