Good times.

Happy Day After Valentine's Day! I got thousands of cards and letters through yesterday, not to mention flowers. My favourite was the field that was bought for me, with red roses arranged in such a way that it spelled out "This Is All In Your Mind".

I did have a lovely evening. I sat in the Jon Snow pub in Soho and drank beer. With this person who I really, really like. Like, a lot. I will not harp on about him, though, because I am shy.

Well, perhaps not so much shy, then. I am, however, a bit a-frighted, because I think that so far I have fooled him into thinking I'm quite nice, and if I harp on about him the Universe will suddenly shout "HA!" and he will go off me. Then I'll be sad, and perhaps weep like a lady in a turn-of-the-century romantic novel, and people will have to administer smelling salts and will talk in hushed tones about my rapidly fading health, and they won't know that it is not the influenza that ails me, but a broken heart. I will go about the whole thing in a very elegant and ladylike manner, there will be a minimal amount of snivelling and perhaps a far bit of walking aroung looking a bit pale.

Sometimes I worry about the tangents my brain seems to take me on. It is more worrying that I just type it all out without really thinking.

Well. We were in the pub last night and there was this group of women sitting next to us. We are both the sort of people that enjoy chatting to strangers, and so we got into a conversation with these women, who were perhaps in their thirties (not really relevant, just setting the scene). We were talking about something, I think they were talking about how very off-putting it is when a man refers to sex as 'making love', and then I noticed one of the women staring at me intently.

"I know you." she said, studying my face. "I'm sure I've met you before. I never forget a face."

Well, the thing is that I actually do always forget a face and have quite a rubbish long term memory, so I didn't recognise her.

"Oh, where do I know you from? I definitely know you."

I sort of said "....?"

To which she replied "YES! I KNOW!"

She sat back and tilted her head at me, unnerving me somewhat.

"You sing, don't you?"

"Oh, well, yes..."

A knowing nod.

"Yes, I know how I know you."

She paused, whilst my date and I, and all of her friends looked at her, waiting for the exposition part of the story.

She took a long drag of her cigarette and laughed, looking at me again.

"I'm really freaking you out, aren't I?"

She was.

"Yes! A little bit, to be honest! How do you know me?"

I was actually feeling quite grateful that it seemed to be in a good way, and that I hadn't accidentally slept with her boyfriend or kicked her puppy into traffic or something.

Well. It turned out that she did know me, and I remembered meeting her. About three years ago I went out briefly with this guy called Allan. We didn't go out for very long, but it was quite intense while it lasted and we spent quite a lot of time together. I sometimes even went with him to work.

His Dad was ex-paparazzi and did a lot of celebrity photo shoots, and Allan often went along to earn a bit of extra cash by setting things up, herding people places and generally adding a bit of sexy-snowboarder-chic to the whole affair.

I went along to an Eastenders party (anyone not from the UK, Eastenders is a very popular soap). It was crawling with celebrities, which was very exciting at first. The celebrity thing soon got a bit tedious, and as Allan was helping his Dad I wandered into the garden and was quickly thrilled to discover that I could drink as much Champagne as I liked and nobody could stop me.

As I sat at a table and watched the people schmooze and tipping the lovely bubbles down my throat a lady sat next to me. She told me wearily that she was writing the article for 'OK!' magazine, or perhaps it was 'Hello!' magazine, I forget. Anyway it was one of those God-awful celebrity Jordan-invites-you-into-her-lovely-home ones.

(I hate those magazines)

This woman, Juliette, was bored out of her mind. Bored with the party, bored with celebrity and bored with having to chronicle celebrity as if it mattered.

We sat and talked for about three hours, until I had to go home. We talked about her job, what she wanted to do with her life. We talked about my singing. I told her all about what I wanted to do, how much it meant to me, how I couldn't ever imagine doing anything else.

She got in touch with this guy for me, a producer who did a lot of work in London, and I did some recording with him. I couldn't do much as University commitments meant I couldn't travel from Warwick to London with any regularity, but it was great for my confidence and gave me valuable studio experience.

Last night she told me that she did that for me because she had never met anyone who was so very passionate and certain about what they wanted to do, and who didn't confuse music with show business and show business with celebrity.

How wonderful.

She hadn't even heard me sing, and yet she did this for me.

It was lovely to be reminded of that last night, and in the context of such a very lovely evening.

I'm no Blanche DuBois, but I do think there is something wonderful about the unexpected kindness of strangers.

Happy Wednesday to you, other strangers.