We went all the way to Slough today to look at lighting for the kitchen. There are a couple of big lighting stores there and several DIY places. The trip was almost entirely a waste of time (surprise, surprise - I should have known better than to think we'd get what we want just like that).

Modern light fittings are unbelievably horrible - well, all the ones I've seen in recent times anyway. I just keep feeling as though the designers of lighting have had a complete taste bypass - most of what we saw was complete junk of the worst kind, cheap plastic fittings using those silly little harsh-lighted bulbs that blow every other week. The rest of what we saw was just completely impractical - nothing that you could put a 100 watt bulb in, nothing that you would feel proud of in any way. This is probably why we still don't have a new fitting for the light in the sitting room, even though we've been looking for four years now for something suitable.

On the way, David persuaded me to go to PC World, usually the sort of grim experience I prefer not to have but I must have been feeling magnanimous because, for whatever reason I agreed and we ended up in there looking at Apple Macs. At least this restored my faith that there are good designers still operating in the world. I don't think I've ever seen any computer 'gadget' as beautiful as the gorgeous G4 PowerMac - it totally restored my faith - now all we have to do is try to persuade a lighting manufacturer to hire a designer of that calibre and we're away!

While in the dreaded PC World, we remembered I needed a new mouse. Here it is - very pretty, very responsive and a nice, firm click. Terrific - just what I wanted.