Window technicians

From a little after four o'clock until almost sundown of the long still hot weary dead September afternoon they sat in what Miss Coldfield still called the office because her father had called it that – a dim hot airless room with the blinds all closed and fastened for forty-three summers because when she was a girl someone had believed that sight and moving air carried heat and that dark was always cooler, and which (as the sun shone fuller and fuller on that side of the house) became latticed with yellow slashes full of dust motes which Quentin thought of as being flecks of the dead old dried paint itself blown inward from the scaling blinds as wind might have blown them.

Blue sky, hot sun; mum & I take coffee in the garden. Bill and Moira are hard at work down the street renovating ancient, wooden windows neglected for decades. "I'll finish them all before I die" quips Bill.

We go into Marlborough to try a restaurant that mum has been eyeing up - Dan's. It's small and good and I eat too much. I sleep it off on the train back to Paddington.

A number 3 buzz cut at Toppers on Goodge St finishes by trip acquisitions. I then spend an hour packing and repacking my rucsac until I'm happy that the load is well distributed and the zip will not burst. Harder when the bladder is full, obviously.

Mackerel and sweet corn for supper. The final pale ale. And Whit Stillman's Barcelona. Up at 5:30 tomorrow morning.