The windows blokes came at 10am, not noon, waking me out of a sound sleep. Most embarrassing to answer the door in dressing gown with my hair upside down. I must have looked a fright, because they looked frightened.

Anyway they (two new fellows) went to work with a will. Good news: it's mostly finished. Bad news: one of the "units" in the french doors has to be replaced. I'd noticed these little tiny beads of something between the two panes of glass, and they said that meant it was defective. It's toughened glass so would normally take a fortnight, but through some jiggery pokery they're fixing it next week. On Monday they come and take out the unit and put in a sheet of plywood. Then on Wednesday they come back with the fixed unit. Any burglars reading please note: I'm assured the plywood is Very Strong.

Once they finally finished I went to PC World to convince myself once and for all that I cannot afford to upgrade my creaking computer. No, no, no. And came away with an upgrade ... for the Sims. Oh dear. I hadn't played Sims for ages but then Anthea was talking about her Sims and how well they're doing etc and I started playing it again. It's horribly addictive once you get started.

Speaking of addiction, I've stopped smoking yet again. I had one on Saturday afternoon, but apart from that it's been about ten days. I thought I might start again on Saturday night, but not many people were smoking at the pub. And then last night (this counts as Thursday because I haven't been to bed yet, so we're talking about Wednesday -- like you care!) I was at the pub with smoking people and didn't scrounge one. The worst craving I've had so far was while listening to a radio discussion last week about lung cancer. Yap yap yap about smoking. I was gasping for a cig.

I remember once I had been off smokes for months & then watched Silkwood, the Meryl Streep movie about Karen Silkwood, the anti-nuke whistle-blower. Everyone in that movie chain-smoked. During an ad break I rushed to the chippie for a pack of ten -- part funded by my flatmate, who also fell off the tobacco wagon during the movie. In one scene Karen's husband walks out, bangs the door dramatically behind him. Seconds later he bursts back in, grabs a carton of cigarettes from a cupboard, then leaves again. CARTONS of cigarettes, remember that? What extravagant risks we took back then. Ah, those were the days.