I think my bad streak may be over. I took the car in to the garage today and the chap there fixed a few little things -- the squeaks, the sticky gear shift, the choked water filter -- and charged me £15. He sent me round to a place round the corner to have them look at the exhaust, they phoned him with their price and I went back to get his price -- £50. The blokes around the corner said my brake discs were nearly shot, but my garage bloke said, nah, they'll be all right. So when I go back next month for the MOT (annual warrant of fitness), he'll get the exhaust done.

While he was tinkering with the car, Faye and I went to the Botanical Gardens for a walk. Very lovely in there, as usual. The rhododendrons are out and the azealeas, but the borders haven't really got under way yet. Then we whizzed back home in my newly smoove car, stopping off for lunch in a cafe overlooking the firth. We squeezed in a Bertie walk before I had to fly off to work. Faye is crashing out tonight, she's still pretty exhausted after her traumatic journey north. She's going to offload some luggage at my place (the joys of vast storage space!) so the trip back to England shouldn't be so bad.

Election night went reasonably smoothly at work. The foreign pages were a little bit more work than expected because there were late-breaking developments on a couple of stories, but nothing too challenging. I stayed until about 2:15am, by when the election outcome was pretty clear. I would have stayed longer but I knew I had to get up early this morning.