I'm skipping school this afternoon.

That's right. Work is reasonably under control, if not verging on quiet at the moment and I am running away to play for the afternoon. I am going to drive up to the coast and go to the cinema to see Julie and Julia.

This seems like the perfect thing to do on a grey september afternoon. It's indulgent, unnecessary and at four pounds a ticket, cheap. Perfect.

It will be an excellent distraction from worrying about builders, topsoil, boilers and clients who haven't paid their invoices and it will hopefully inspire me to cook something delicious for tea on Saturday when ElizabethM comes to visit.

Going to the cinema is rare for me. It is miles away and though I can be bothered to drive the 50 minutes to get there, I can't be bothered with the journey back afterwards late at night. I'm lazy like that.

There is a local cinema nearby. It shows films on Wednesday nights in the village hall and is a little behind the times. At the moment I think that the first Lord of the Rings film has just arrived for a grand premiere. Tickets are sold by a nice lady who is officially 'simple'. She is interesting though. Some years ago she won eight million pounds in the lottery. She bought herself a new second hand volvo and her children new mini coopers. They were not thrilled. Farmers one and all they live up mountains at the end of rutted tracks that Mini Coopers were not designed for. If you see a new mini cooper abandoned at the bottom of a track, you have found one of her sons! I don't know what she did with the rest of the money but she still sells the tickets for the cinema, and the ice creams and packs of minstrels and I have never seen her wear anything except her brown cord skirt, plain shirt and knitted cardigan. Her money did NOT go on designer shopping. Anyway, back to the 'cinema', such as it is.

You sit on those plastic, stacking chairs which after an hour are guaranteed to give you a numb bum, and halfway through the film, regardless of plot, dialogue etc the film stops for an interval! It's not the most comfortable experience and as they usually keep the film schedule top secret until the day afterwards, I rarely manage to go there!

Today's cinema trip though will be to a proper cinema with plush velour seating, the smell of old popcorn and probably children who really are skipping school talking and snogging in the back row.