Tuesday 27th October 2026

Woke around 0530. Strange noises going on...I thought perhaps a mouse had gotten into the wardrobe...if not, then there's definitely something crawling about in the roof void above our heads! Alarm at 0745. Got up and made tea. Porridged. No sign of the roofer...eventually showed up around 0930. Lynne's TV still not working. Nobody seems to be able to work out why! Drove Aki down to Sainsburys at Angel and we did a fairly hefty shop. Back for lunch...soup and toasted sourdough. Ventured into Southwark to visit Tate Modern...wanted to see the photography exhibition, Light & Magic, focussing on the Pictorialists, pioneers of photography as art...some extraordinary stuff going on in those early days. It was dark by the time we came out...caught a train from Blackfriars, and walked home from Finsbury Park station, popping into M&S for bread. Julie Williams rang with some inspections work...I say some, there's loads of it!!! Mostly Suffolk and Norfolk...should earn me enough to pay for my share of the roof replacement! Aki cooked mapo for dinner. Watched an hour of "Avanti", a 1973 Billy Wilder movie we heard being talked about on R4...it's slow going, but some great laugh-out-loud moments from Jack Lemmon. Had to hit the pause button to watch the Ten...hopefully, Netanyahu is on his way out as Israelis take to the polls...

Monday 26th October 2026

Alarm at 0745. Dozed for half an hour then got up to make tea. Gary and Mark showed up. I went up the scaff rig to inspect some dodgy brickwork at second floor level. May need to get the front re-pointed!!! Noticed Lynne's timber window sills are rotten. Pottered about for a bit. Raining again, so trapped in the flat for the morning. Put a sardine salad lunch together. Gary and Mark knocked off early as they had errands to run. We headed into Covent Garden mid-afternoon...to see "Fatherland" at the Garden Cinema. It follows the author Thomas Mann and his daughter as they return to Germany from exile after WWII. Beautifully shot in black and white. Very short for a movie...about an hour and a quarter, but it had emotional heft. Glorious! Caught a No.91 bus back home. I cooked up some tortelloni with a garlic and mushroom sauce. Watched 70Up...rather moving final episode, the director Michael Apted having passed away five years ago. They managed a final interview with Nick, the farmer's lad from Skipton, three days before he died. An amazing document...

Sunday 25th October 2026

Clocks went back overnight, so an extra hour in bed. Woke at 0600, but nodded back off fairly readily. Got up at 0830. Aki cooked breakfast. I got some costume together from my wardrobe, namely a scarf and a couple of hats, and then drove in to Stoke Newington for a morning rehearsal session. Got rehearsed into the first piece, which basically has me coming in at the end as the director. Broke for lunch. Wandered through Abney Park Cemetery, and then double-backed along Church Street and picked up some soup from Pret. Walked back to the theatre to eat it, joining some of the rest of the cast in the bar area. Did a run of all eleven pieces in the afternoon. Lengthy dinner break...wandered down the High Street, then walked back to the theatre to eat my packed dinner. Surprised by how big an audience turned up this evening...about 70 odd altogether. It all went down very well. I got a lot of congratulatory comments afterward, especially for my drunk acting. Sloped off around 2130. Aki drove us home. Watched a bit of MOTD before bath and bed... 

Saturday 24th October 2026

Woke at 0530...got back to sleep in relatively short time. Got up at 0830. Porridged. Shaved. Stuck guitar, mandolin, harmonicas, and cahon in the car, and drove over to Camden Square to hook up with some of the guitar course members who had organised a one-off meet during our half term break. Six of us showed up, four from the current class, and two from previous classes who I hadn't met before. Colin was very handy on the tin whistle...may be able to persuade him along to our Scottish sessions at some point in the future. Four of us adjourned to the Lord Stanley afterward, and I ordered arancini for lunch...the other three shared a couple of pizzas. The food was very good. By the time we left the pub the rains had really started to come down, and it poured relentlessly until about midnight! Drove home and dumped my stuff, then drove over to Waitrose to do a bit of shopping. Aki was back from the Rowing Club AGM by the time I got home. I put a chicken lasagne together for dinner. Watched 70Up, and the final gruelling episode of "Time". Put together a packed lunch for tomorrow. MOTD and bath...

Friday 23rd October 2026

Woke around 0530...didn't really get back to sleep properly. Aki got up at 0700 in the vain hope that the rain would clear so that she could go rowing. I got up and made tea. Porridged. Spotted Lynne outside with the dog, so ventured out for a chat and updated her on the scaffolding saga. She reported that the rain was coming in through her back bedroom ceiling, and through the flat roof in her bathroom...that's what I could hear last night, as I lay in the bath, making dripping sounds as the rainwater hit her bath more or less above my head! The scaffolders turned up around 0830 and finished putting the tin hat on. Gary showed up at 1000, just after they'd gone on to their next job of the day...in pouring rain. He made a quick survey of the leakages upstairs, then started to take off the roof slates. Did my exercises. Aki made ramen soup for lunch. Rain came down relentlessly...not a great day to be a roofer! Wind got up mid afternoon, too! They packed up at 1615, promising to come back tomorrow to check that the tin roof hasn't blown away in the night! Aki cooked sea bass for dinner, which we ate with the remans of the baked rice I'd cooked yesterday. Watched "Celebrity Traitors". Miranda Hart was murdered...she's been very entertaining. Watched The Ten before bath and bed...

Thursday 22nd October 2026

Woke around 0530...took an hour or so to nod back off again! Alarm at 0800. Got up and made tea. Had expected the scaffolders to be finishing off the tin hat, but no sign of anyone. Porridged. Scaffolders eventually showed up...they winched several loads of corrugated tin sheets up to roof level...the lad doing the hauling was completely uncontrolled, letting the sheets swing into the door of the bike shed, and catch on the metal trim around the green roof. I had to go stand in the front doorway to make sure he behaved himself. Pain in the butt! Light lunch. Gary and Charlie turned up to take a closer look at the southern parapet wall...it's in a bad way, but they had taken a look at it back in August at my insistence, so I'd rather assumed any works had been costed into the quote. Gary wanted Casey to extend the tin hat toward the party wall with No.5, and they vowed to come back and finish it before dusk, but needless to say, didn't turn up. Lentil curry, baked rice, and vegetables for dinner, preceded by a baked fig and taleggio starter. Watched "The Traitors", and started 70Up. Had a bath...as I lay there, I could hear the rain battering our skylight, and an alarmingly loud drip, drip sound somewhere above my head...I surmised that it was rainwater being diverted from the tin roof onto the wrought iron guttering to the church next door. Hope there's nothing coming in behind the bathroom tiling!!!

Wednesday 21st October 2026

Alarm at 0700. Got up and made tea. Put the ladder up in the back yard in anticipation of the arrival of the scaffolding team. I swear he'd told me last night that they'd rock up at 0800...by 0945 there was no sign of them. Rang the roofer, and he chased them up. They had had to go and pick up some more poles from a depot in Crouch End, and rocked up at around 1015. I made them tea. They got on with sticking a 'tin-hat' on top of the scaff rig. Took them most of the day. Aki and I moved the dining table so that we could take up the rug...we had a non-slip layer delivered, cut to the same size as the rug; hoping that it will protect the floor from the black staining from the rug. Aki tried to clean the stains off the floorboards, with only partial success. Stopped for soup for lunch. The underlay turned up and we got it laid successfully and repositioned the dining table. Early dinner...chicken chasseur and vegetables. Drove to Southgate Road for rehearsals at Martin and Janet South's house. Same set up as yesterday...worked through three pieces...I was only in one piece, which we happened to do first. It was the worst crafted piece of the lot, unfortunately, so was a bit of a slog. Martin was in the scene with me, which is always fun, but he seemed to have come down with a very heavy cold, or may be suffering the onset of a bout of flu...sincerely hope he hasn't passed it on to me!!! Made my escape after doing my piece, and left them to it. Drove home, listening to the Bayern v Arsenal game on R5Live.