Our favourite local bar and vegan burger place, The Full Nelson in Deptford, closed for the last time last night. It was a lovely, cosy, friendly place, usually playing some 80s metal or rock, full of extraordinary looking people and cute dogs. It hadn’t been open long when we found it shortly after I met L— in 2017, and we’ve been going at least every other week to get some beers, to eat some (delicious) burgers, and usually to solve a crossword together. It’s devastating to lose something so special.

We were there two days before the first lockdown, and back there the first night they reopened. But I don’t think business recovered: it was never as busy as it had been before 2020, when you often had to wait for a table.

They announced that they were closing for good last week, and Sunday evening was the last send off, so of course we went. They opened at 5, we got there ten minutes before, and managed to get a table. Within ten minutes, the queue was out the door; by a bit later it reached all the way to the next street.

If only everyone had turned up a bit more often. Use it or lose it.

It’s such a waste of the years of work that went into it. But as the owner Lee said as I wished him goodbye and good luck, “Six years isn’t so bad.”

On Monday, we saw To Kill a Mockingbird at the Gielgud Theatre with some of L—’s colleagues (who organised it). There were some rather ropey efforts at Alabama accents, as you might expect from a British production. I won’t give it a full review, but will just say that I read the book at school, maybe for GCSE, and my interpretation of the story this time was very different.

My parents were in London for a few days, so we had dinner together. It was nice to see them, which we haven’t been able to do so much recently. First there was the pandemic, now they’re having work done to their house so there’s nowhere for me to stay if I were to visit.

I went out every night from Monday to Thursday. I think this week will be a bit quieter.