In case anyone was wondering, the tile guy still hasn't turned up. It's been over a month now since I chose the tiles. White, Spanish. I keep phoning and the other bloke, the one in the shop, says things like, "Oh, hasn't he been yet, dear? I thought he'd done that job. The tiles are here..."

I'll have to get someone else in. If I can be bothered.

I read something today about emigration, about the queues outside Australia House in London. One bloke was quoted as saying he wanted to leave Britain because he was sick of the negative, no-can-do attitude. And I thought, there goes another Whingeing Pom! He'll be in Sydney in a few months, sitting there grizzling away about how it's too hot and the beer's too cold and there are too many Koreans.

I picked a few branches of hawthorn blossom today, I love the acrid, almost-offensive smell and the white and green.