Orange

The berberis in the garden is a spectacular colour at the moment, this picture really doesn't do it justice.

Mixed-job day today. Took my current driver out for a run up and down the M11. Not his comfort zone, but then that's the point.

When we arrive back, so did a neighbour with a large sofa. Thus we spent a happy hour chatting and trying to manoeuvre said sofa into the house. As far as I know it's still stuck in the hallway, and the sofa theme of Douglas Adam's Dirk Gently worries me slightly.

From wiki: "one plot thread involves moving a sofa which is irreversibly stuck on the staircase to Richard's apartment; according to his simulations, not only is it impossible to remove it, but there is no way for it to have got into that position in the first place.

In a similar incident that occurred while Douglas Adams attended St John's College, Cambridge, furniture was placed in the rooms overlooking the river in Third Court while the staircases were being refurbished. When the staircases were completed, it was discovered that the sofas could no longer be removed from the rooms, and the sofas remained in those rooms for several decades."

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In the evening Ellis and Martin & Jules joined us for games and feeling oddly retro we played Modigliani. It's a game about collecting paintings, but the play is distinctly roll-dice-move-dobber-with-chance-cards, which, with a couple of bottles of wine, actually made a welcome change from our more usual turn-angst style of board game.