And so another week rolls past. Here I am once again on my own at home while Joan is slaving away in a hot shop (and I know from bitter experience just how hot in can get in that shop too). And once again there were people wanting to get in and but stuff before we arrived with the keys. Now, I know that we do sometimes shop for non-food things on a Sunday when it is the only chance we get to go out together, but really. It must be at least two years now that they have been regularly open on Sundays and the hours haven't changed from 10 to 4 in all that time. Surely people should have worked that out by now. Or am I just being overly optomistic about the mental stat of the general populace? So, I've washed the car (the only trouble with having the driveway is that part of the car always seems to end up under the tv aerial where the birds perch...) and will shortly be getting back to the ironing.

Friday night was pretty good - I managed to eat the Chinese tolerably well, Alexander was pleased with his presents and things generally went well. Yesterday I was on my own again so some ironing, some shopping, a bit of snoozing and some Richard visiting. Then last night we killed some time watching Miss Congeniality which had a few good moments.

Have finished rummaging in ...Capt. Flint's Trunk and definitely enjoyed it for the nth time. I wonder how many times I have actually read it. Three or four I guess but I can't put a definite figure on it. I know I haven't read it since June 1997 as since then I have been sticking the date I finish each book in the front of it as I was wondering that very question of how often I get through some books then. Probably a very sad thing to do (and worse to reveal!) but what the heck. There are some books (indeed whole series) sat on the shelves that I have been through many times over the years to the point that I can sit and recall huge chunks of them at will. So I thought it would be interesting to see how often I did go back there. Not much is the answer in the last six years though - always so many new things to read makes time to squeeze in old favourites that little bit rarer. Anyway, have now dived in to the last part of the Otherland saga from Tad Williams - Sea Of Silver Light which is by far the largest chunk of the series. But already some of the loose ends are starting to come together along with explanations for things I've been puzzling over the first three books. All told I can highly recomend what I've read so far.

Not particularly looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. In some ways less so than I was this time last week after having had the whole week off, not just a couple of days. At least then I was fairly confident of having something to get on with when I was there, but the last few days have been a real drag. I know I've spent most of the last five years wishing for some sort of stability in the bus service network of Suffolk so I didn't have to keep changing the timetables, but at least that meant I had something to do. At the moment it just seems as if I have nothing to be getting on with (there are a few things I could do but can't seem to get motivated for them). And of course I'm still annoyed with all the dealys to getting the books finished. Still, they will be with us soon and I can spend a couple of weeks out and about trying to foist them on people. And I'm only in for three days this week anyway - Tuesday is a Park & Ride conference in London which if nothing else will add a few hours to the flexi-time total and Wednesday I'm back to Colchester to get these stitches out. No appointment time for that - just turn up and he'll fit me in between other patients. So that could be a long or short visit, I really don't know hence the whole day off.

But, it pays the bills so I have to get myself going again and do the best I can. Saying that, I do have an application form to fill in this week as well - for a personnel post with the Police which looks interesting. We shall see how it goes.

Right, time to do something useful.