I’ve just found out that my ex-fiancee, Ellie, has just finished her (Biology) degree, got an excellent mark, and is now looking for places to do a PhD. This news makes me happy – she’s very bright and deserves to go far in her subject. She was the one that convinced me that science wasn’t the dull, dull stuff I’d been taught at school, but was vibrant, fascinating and utterly marvellous, for which I owe her a massive debt of gratitude. She also managed to convince me that history was interesting, too, after a slew of teachers had reduced it to dull dates and political movements. (I have an almighty chip on my shoulder about the way I was taught some subjects in school, now, although no-one has yet succeed in my challenge to make me interested in geography…)

I’m currently reading Age of Bronze and have just finished Surely You’re Joking, Mr Fenyman. The odds are pretty good that I’d never have looked at either of these books had it not been for her bullying me into sitting down and reading some of the books she owns. Mind you, she also forced me to watch both Pride and Prejudice and Titanic several times, so y’know, it all balances in the end.

What leaves me slightly saddened about all this is that I didn’t hear it from her, but from a mutual friend, in passing. I mean, yeah, I know we’d have been a disaster as a couple, long term. Yes, and all those other cliches that people trot out to explain why a relationship didn’t work, and convince themselves that it’s all for the best really. Bullshit. I’ve no way of knowing. It didn’t work out, and that’s an end of it. But anyway, this news kind of drives it home how we’ve manged to drift apart – we’re at opposite ends of the country, and haven’t spoken in something like six months.

I kind of regret that, just like I regret losing touch with so many of my friends up there.

But life moves on, I guess.