Let me see, my face is slightly red, my arms, legs and back are aching and I have some good blisters on my hands. What can I have been up to? Its got to be either (a) something extremely kinky we'd best draw a discrete veil over or (b) the continued good weather brought out a rash of gardening yesterday.

It's (b) I'm afraid. Took out a Eucalyptus tree that had died (real shame) and then stripped the turf from a large patch of lawn where we are going to lay a new patio. At the far end of the garden that gets the sun inthe evenings. Only something we've been planning to do for 6 years now, but I guess the inside of the house took precedence. Now all we need to do is level the remaining soil and lay the slabs. Which we do have already. Then get a skip for the day to get rid of all the turf. Then either move and convert the shed already at that end, or obtain a little summerhouse type affair for those hot summer nights. That's put a curse on the sun for the rest of the summer. And what happened to spring anyway?

Even fewer people in the office today as we now have one in hospital for an op on his knee and Dawn off for the day. So really, even less time to distract myself like this. However, I've just finished ploughing through the proof books and am now waiting for Charles to check for anything I may have missed before sending any corrections back to Pindar. Oh what a busy life.

Despite the work in the sun, we still managed a few other things this weekend. I was basically chained to the iron on Saturday, but kept myself amused with the assistance of Aerosmith (Nine Lives), The Chemical Brothers (Dig Your Own Hole) and the Hitch Hiker's Guide to The Galaxy (tv series DVD). Also assorted other musical influences through the tv I can't be bothered to list here. Watching HHG again after many years was great - especially with the quality, previous edited bits put back in and also the production notes on the disc. Almost as good as a full commentary but also not as distracting from the plot. Looking forward to all the extras on disc 2 when I reach the end of the series.

Last night we rewarded ourselves by watching Gladiator again. It was actually free with the DVD player, but one I would happily have paid full price for. Was amazed to realise we've had it well over a year and that was only the second time we've watched it. Where does all the time go? And yet another film I'm looking forward to listening to the commentary on. And watching all the extras. Oh, and we watched a borrowed copy of Boogie Nights on Friday. Quite amusing in parts (is that the right term to use??) but not one we'll be rushing to catch again I don't think.

Nearly time for lunch now...