The youngest stayed behind after work to ask if he was doing all right on our crew. He's my brother, but at work I call him the apprentice and probably give him more stick than anyone. Said yes, he was doing fine, and he looked so relieved I felt a bit rotten. Had thought he knew. Then he asked if that meant he could borrow the van Saturday and I couldn't tell how much of the speech had been preparation. He's not getting the van. Still glad he asked me the first bit. Mentioned it to my fiancée over tea and she said we were both exactly like my dad. Can't argue much with that.

Dry morning, little wind. Went out on the bike before dinner at Nan's and picked a hill I'd been avoiding because last time I got off halfway. Stayed on this time, though a bloke walking his dog wasn't losing much ground on me. Legs hot, mouth open, couldn't have answered him if he'd spoken. At the top I sat on the grass with the bike beside me till my breathing settled. Had that empty, properly hungry feeling all the way home. Nan put an extra potato on my plate without asking what I'd done. Could have managed another three, but my brother was already eyeing the dish.

Been trying to write something for the wedding speech that isn't lifted off the internet or me making jokes about the bill. I can tell the lads where to put twenty tonnes of scaffold but apparently cannot explain why I want to marry the woman in my kitchen. Put down the story of the tooth and meeting her at reception. Everyone's heard it, some of them more than they'd like, yet it's the only bit that sounds like me when I say it aloud. Then I get to the part where she stayed up helping with the house papers and start crossing words out. The speech is currently longer in deleted bits than in words.