Renovation update: The windows bloke came, as arranged, to take away the defective unit. The piece of Very Strong plywood he'd brought to leave in its place was a foot too short. He'd done the meauring, someone else had done the cutting. Luckily I have plenty of top quality laminate offcuts in the shed, so he used one of them to bodge a solution. Burglars note: it is Very Secure.

I was watching the bloke (forgot to ask his name again) taking out the unit and noticed a sudden shower of the tiny beads inside it. Peering closer I saw they were pouring out of a hole in the inside of the frame. The bloke said someone had driven a screw through it.

"I'm surprised the chaps who installed it didn't notice," I said.

The look he gave me spoke volumes. It said: "Nothing surprises me, I've seen it all. They probably did notice and didn't say anything to save themselves the hassle of replacing it. They might even have done the damage themselves." He didn't say a word. Extremely eloquent though.

After that I faddled around carrying furniture and pot plants upstairs, had lunch and did some gardening -- inspired by the Marshalls Kitchen Gardener's catalogue that came through the post this morning. I weeded the beds out the back and sprinkled round a bit of stinky compost I bought last year. It's a concentrated manure and seaweed blend, so it's foul. I also shifted one of the hydrangeas from its prime position to the back of the back yard. I thought there was just one big plant, but there are four of them, bunched together. I don't know what to do with the others, I might put them out the front. I don't like hydrangeas much. I'm going to plant blackcurrants in their place, and possibly raspberries.

In the next week or so, weather permitting, I'll extend the bed I've been digging along the fence, ready for rocket and runner beans. I've already got the rocket seed. I'm going to get Red Rum beans, "an amazing development", according to the catalogue. "It can set beans under all sorts of conditions by self-polliination so that it outcrops all the standard varieties." There's even a testimonial from Mr S. Freeman in Essex. I just like the way they look, twining up a wigwam of poles, covered in scarlet flowers. Also pondering courgettes (Kojac, a compact, spineless variety you can grow in the patio) and strawberries (Marshmello -- "combines a wonderful old-fashioned flavour and aroma with reliability in varied conditions"). I'd like to grow tomatoes in the tiny patio bit out the back, it gets really hot out there and is sheltered too. Carefree appeals: "Plant it, forget it -- well, almost! -- until you start to pick the masses of fruits."

The catalogue is so seductive, everything looks delicious. All kinds of unusual things too -- salsify, seakale, chinese water convolvulus. Argh! I've just seen something called Land Cress, which looks just like what I weeded out of the garden this afternoon! Hmmm, maybe not...

Mushrooms too. That would be a little creepy though, "pre-spawned compost" cooking away in a cupboard. Also they present the same problem as the rest of the catalogue: vast quantities. Raspberries: 12 canes. Rhubarb: 3 crowns. Mangetout: 18ft row. I'd open the door and the cupboard would be full of glowing white fungi. Mushroom omlette, anyone? Spaghetti sauce? I could always freeze stuff, I guess. Yeah right.

The tile guy rang with a quote, quite reasonable. I need three square metres of tiles, he says. So I'll go in to the shop tomorrow and get some samples to take home and try against the decor. Deciding on colours should only take six months or so.

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.

I was supposed to have gone home ten minutes ago but I've been emailing etc; so I may as well throw in an entry here. There's been a flurry of emails from hither and yon, forcing me to look up things like Idiopathic Thrombocytopaenic Purpura (not as bad as it sounds, apparently & Daniel's getting better) and Clarendon (not far from Waihola, phew).

I had a soporific couple of days off, did a lot of housework and a spot of gardening but not a lot else. But it's just the lull before the storm.

Tomorrow the window blokes are coming, and on Friday a man's coming to measure up the kitchen for the splashback tiles. I thought about doing it myself, but it's quite complicated. I'll watch the professionals closely then maybe try my hand in the bathroom. I'd love to do something mad in there with mosaic: a Gaudi knock-off with bits of broken crockery and mirror and whatnot. But the kitchen needs to be reasonably sensible, I think.

The big challenge is chosing something. I thought I'd more or less decided (smallish tiles, patchwork of lightish, brightish colours), but the tile shop was a phantasmogoric wonderland of colour, texture, glaze and size. 3-D yachts! Sweet! How about this gorgeous little number with a goldfish leaping next to a waterlily! Ooooh, art deco ... glass mosaic ... metallic effect fossils ... Get me out of here. The man kept showing me more boards: Victorian borders, inset feature tiles, matt, gloss, rustic, vegetable themes, frogs, aiee!

Then there is the tile shop I'm afraid to go into. It has a wonderful selection of hand-made tiles, including stylish-yet-earthy ones with Pictish symbols. Ruinously expensive though. Sigh.

Then sanding and varnishing the french doors as mentioned previously. Next week I have to move most of the furniture upstairs, and the flooring is delivered. I got all that sorted on Monday -- the bloke in the warehouse said, "You'll be able to remember what day they're delivering, because it's my birthday!" I have to also climb up to the loft and retrieve the packet of planks I stored up there. Hope I don't kill myself in the process, that would be a shame. Dougie and Bob are coming the following weekend to lay the floor, Dougie reckons they'll just take two days. Please let that be true. It felt as though they were there for a week the first time round, they made such a racket and a mess.

I really must go home.

Forgot to say, the date for the windows is now 14 Feb. Everyone tells me it'll only take a day, they just bash out the old windows and pop the new ones back in, ta da! But I think it'll take longer. The french doors must be more complicated to do than that -- there's a door sill to put in for a start.

I hope it's quick, though. It'll be great to have windows that open and close without a great thumping drama. Plus the old ones are incredibly dirty ...

First blog post!

I'm posting this to my home page from the office ... this could be mildly addictive ...

There is absolutely nothing to report at the moment but I can see this will be a useful feature for later on.

Today: I had my first decent sleep in over a week, despite being woken at 9am by the alarm clock I'd forgotten to turn off, then an intermittant crashing noise I thought at first was the boy next door playing football against the fence and much later discovered was the open back gate banging in the wind. Yesterday Bob (assistant to Dougie, who was laying the kitchen floor) had offered to put away my wheelie bin, since his saw-horse was blocking the alley. And he did, but forgot to lock the gate.

What really shocked me was discovering that I'd also forgotten to lock the french doors. Again. Hello, Mr Burglar, welcome ... just help yourself to electrical goods, there's nothing else of value, I'm sorry.

Fed the birds, which are enjoying the latest seed mix. Mmmm, black sunflower seed, tasty. They get through a half-litre containerful a day, plus peanuts. The "Peck Treat" is slowly going, though I suspect it's eroding from the rain rather than being eaten.