We have achieved so much good stuff today despite a really dodgy start. We’ve managed to extract 50 litres of beautiful, clean fuel oil from its container and put it into our tank – we now have hot water in our taps for the first time in ages. What’s even better about this is we think there is another 8-9 lots of 50 litres there so we may well end up with half a tankful. With luck and a following wind that’ll last us until Christmas by which time we will hopefully have jobs sorted out and therefore the means to pay the £700 needed to fill the tank.

We’ve also been making more progress on the telly/radio front – an old aerial in the loft has been deemed good enough to run a terrestrial signal after an investigation by DM so we can dispense with the fire irons as an aerial and have the telly signal plumbed in. A 19p gender changer from Trago Mills fixed the radio so now we can listen to R4 in the lounge – bloody brilliant.

I’ve found time to iron a dozen shirts and a couple of pairs of trousers along with changing the sheets, doing a couple of loads of washing and generally making progress in the house. I’ve even invested some time in finishing the book I started months ago so an now “free” to start another book, which I’m hoping will be dispensed with much more quickly! After all, there is nothing nicer than an afternoon on the sofa with a good book and Radio 4 (see earlier comments). It’s especially good that finally in our pre-season of almost entirely unmitigated disaster, the Spurs team have finally found the back of the net to score 6 against South China – however, I have a nasty feeling that playing South China is a bit like playing Macclesfield Town so I’m not sure that celebrations are exactly warranted!

So, after all of the above, when JD began his evening campaign, I decided to spend some time wearing them both out with a tennis racquet and ball. This photo of him with tongue hanging out demonstrates that even this good thing was successful.

Oh – the dodgy start? Neighbours who think that it's perfectly acceptable getting someone to start work on their roof (a mere 6-8 feet from our bedroom window) VERY early on Saturday morning and not just that but at 7pm they are still bloody banging and power-tooling about. GGGrrrrrr. The arrival of a letter from my credit card company asking me to call their fraud department didn't do anything to raise my spirits. When I phoned them, I was told that some complete and utter bastard has defrauded me out of nearly six grand…fortunately because it’s fraud, I don’t have to stump up the money but nonetheless it took up a lot of my morning in telephone calls. If there is any justice, these people will get their comeuppance soon! I’ve told the credit card company to talk to the transport police and get their CCTV because two of the transactions were for train tickets and as you have to put the card into the machine on the station to collect them, they must be able to get a CCTV image of the culprits…see, watching “The Bill” may have finally paid off!!!