Cute dog stories, awwwww, sweeeet!!! I'm embarrassed. But what the hell, in cyberspace you can't hear anyone groan "please, no more".

OK on the morning walk, we encountered a rabbit right by the steps up to the field/scrubbery. It jumped away slowly, stopping to rub its ears. Bertie could NOT believe his eyes. He didn't go mad, he didn't jerk on the lead, he just stood there, his eyes bugging out, until it sauntered off into the undergrowth. Given his emerging scaredy-cat tendencies, I can only assume he's learning something about perspective. Like in the Father Ted episode where Ted is holding a toy cow and explaining to Father Dougal: "This cow is small. That cow [pointing out the window] is far away." So maybe Bertie's thinking "Cripes, that rabbit is HUGE!"

Another cute dog story isn't funny: he's got a sore foot, ow ow ow, it hurts! It really hurts! It may be a sprain. He was fine on the morning walk, but suddenly suffering later in the day. It was a traumatic day all round -- on top of the giant rabbit and the sore leg, there were men in the garden next door cutting up and taking away the lawn. I had to escort him out in to the garden, the sook.

One more cute dog story, oh go on, you know you want one! On the morning walk we came across a Yorkshire terrier, tiny little thing. It stood up on its hind legs and put its front feet on Bertie's chest so it could sniff nose-to-nose!

Ulp ... it has been quite a while, hasn't it? You'll be glad to hear I had a productive two days off and my home is not now a health hazard. The bed is still broken, the computer's still playing up, but at least the floors are reasonably clean, and the shelves (including a new one from Ikea) are dusted and full of books. Not quite an Ikea catalogue illustration but a definite improvement.

I did have a go at the computer -- this will amuse any geeks reading (ie Liz and Ken), others can skip to the next paragraph. First I backed up what I needed on the Sparq drive, then gathered the Windows CD and all the hardware installation disks etc. I checked out the startup disks I had & none of them worked. (That was actually because the CMOS was set to boot C then A rather than A then C, but I didn't think to check that at first.) So I set out to make a floppy boot with the CD driver on it. Looong loooong ago when I bought my computer there was a problem with the CD drive & they sent me a floppy with the right driver on it. Now, I have been having a little problem with it again lately, in that it doesn't always install properly. So I thought, ahah! I'd better reinstall it now using the disk, before I make the startup disk. Why? I don't know, I just did. It reinstalled all right, but a) it called itself D, which was actually the Sparq drive and b) it did something to config.sys that eventually buggered the memory or whatever so it kept freezing and hanging. In between hell and high water, I reinstalled the Sparq drive. After high water I was reduced to rebooting into DOS using the incomplete startup disk (and fixing the CMOS setting) and harking back to the mid-90s: oh how quaint!! No pictures! I managed to track down the Edit application and rem out the naughty line in config.sys and got the whole shonky system moving again. I still have the original instability -- something to do with the new printer -- so will eventually have to bite the bullet and reformat the hard drive. Or I might take the opportunity to get a new, bigger hard drive so that when Ken visits again he'll have somewhere to put all his Stuff. Also it should keep me creaking along until I have time to build a new box in the winter.

Back in the real world, a dog was crying. There was a big scary monster outside, going WoooOOooooo!!! Right outside from his bed! Yup, my dog is scared of the wind whistling in the wires. Poor Bertie. I had just turned on the television -- his signal to go to bed, since he loathes TV. He tromped out, and then suddenly there was a yelp and a great crashing as he frantically tried to run on the laminate and fell over. We went out to the back yard to investigate, but the monster wasn't there. We came back in, and there it was again! He paced around miserably, whining, and finally settled on the bare floor in the far corner of the dining room, as far as he could get from the noise. I moved his duvet in there, and eventually had to move his dishes as well, because he won't go near his former "bedroom".

He's finally started coming upstairs, but that's traumatic too. He can get up just fine, but coming down ... I have to coax him, step by trembling step. The angle is too steep, the treads too narrow. I had to put a mat at the bottom -- he used to come off in a painful spreadeagled clatter of limbs.

Otherwise he's fine, enjoying his outings and generallly behaving himself. He's not in much danger of catching a rabbit: he gives them too much of a head start & can't get into the bramble patches they hide in. I'm not worried about rabbits, it's cats. If he caught a cat I'd feel dreadful. But I don't want to muzzle him either. Hmm. I've got an extending lead and I keep him on that more and more, particularly on the walk above town that backs on to houses. The field behind my place is ok, I think.

A little project I'm considering is rubbish collection. I spent a few weeks in California once, roaming the countryside in a tiny hire car. I was wandering around a strange and beautiful area of sand dunes and little lakes, when I met a man walking his dog and stopped to chat. He told me the area was once where the local hoons came to race their off-road vehicles, it was a mess. Concerned locals got together to save it, and this fellow got interested. He started going there for walks, and was disturbed at the amount of rubbish lying around. He decided to do something about it himself. Every time he went for a walk, he took big rubbish bags with him and filled them. "After a while it was only one bag. Then a smaller bag. Now I only take a little one, just in case." For him, the payoff was not only a more pleasant place to walk in, but someone to walk with him -- he found a litter of abandoned puppies, one of which he adopted.

So anyway, the places where Bertie and I walk are an appalling mess -- garbage everywhere. So I thought I might follow that bloke's example and take a bin-bag with me. I even thought about talking the council into lending me one of their rubbish-gripper thingies, so I wouldn't have to stoop all the time.

I'll keep you posted.

Bertie's lesson for the day: Do NOT, under any circumstances, run on to the railway line. You will be yelled at and have to spend the rest of the walk on a tight leash.

I did some grocery shopping and carried another couple of dozen CDs downstairs. Everything is filthy and disordered. Bertie's duvet cover is muddy and covered in dog hair and crumbs, and so is the floor (we had a long, involved argument about whether he was going to eat his DentaBone on the persian rug or on the duvet). The study is still a tip. The bed is still broken (did I mention the bed broke?) and the broken bits are still lying where they fell, the pot plants are drying out, the spare bedroom is a storage dump, the bathroom floor is covered in muddy clothes. And it's only been a week! In a month they'll call the environmental health people in with masks and rubber gloves.

Tomorrow Anthea and I are going to Ikea to sort our lives out. It promises pretty much that in the catalogue. The people look so happy, their houses are lickably clean. All their stuff is organised. All we need is shelves, and the rest will follow.

Sum total of work towards tidying the house today: plugged in the stereo. That's it. I really must start moving stuff down, but I'm so tired! All this walking, walking, walking ...

Two shortish walks today (one hour and twenty minutes), with plenty of off-leash romping. Bertie finally got the chance to chase a real live rabbit and made a hash of it. The rabbit got a head start and fled into a bramble patch.

I had another look at his ear tattoos and realised I'd read one of them upside down -- it says TV, not A.I. That would make him three, I think, which seems about right.

Next project on hand is building some shelves in my bedroom and in the livingroom, in the chimney alcoves. I'm going to get bare boards, sand and varnish them, and fix them with blocks of wood rather than brackets. I also need more freestanding bookshelves --- Ikea for that, I think. Then some kind of lighter drapes for the french doors. Oh, and I need to move all the furniture and books and stuff back down from upstairs and sort out the study and reformat the hard drive and reinstall all the software.

I'll start as soon as I've walked the dog ...

Dog ownership is wearing me out. Today we went for two walks. The first, to the field up behind my place, was a happy one. The second was a mistake. I was going to a farm a fair step away, to buy some eggs, and I thought, I'll walk and take the dog.

Bad idea.

First, the farm is on a main road. Second, the road is bounded by fields, wide open fields where rabbits frolic freely. So I found myself in charge of a big, strong dog, hysterical with excitement, leaping, twisting and lunging to get free, while huge lorries thundered past inches away. Eventually we made it to the farm intact. More excitement: the farm's hens are free range, as in walking around in the yard, on the roadside, everywhere. Second, the farm's extremely friendly Newfoundland dog looks pretty much like a bear -- size, shape, fur. "I LOVE YOU!!!" he bellowed at Bertie from the end of his chain. "Can we go home now?" quivered Bertie, doing his best to ignore the Newfie and eyeing the hens.

I bought eggs, and we made the nightmare journey back, Bertie gagging and jerking on the lead like a lunatic, me sweating and swearing.

Tomorrow we're going to the field and that's IT. I'm shattered.

Did I mention the floor is finished? Dougie and Bob came on Sunday as promised. I'd forgotten about daylight saving, of course, so as far as I was concerned, they arrived at 7.30am. Bloody hell. Bertie was appalled at the noise, so we went out for a long walk. When we got back, the fridge, washing machine and stove were all in the hallway and there was even more noise.

Eventually the blokes finished, packed up and left. After they'd driven off in their van, Bertie went to the front door and barked VERY LOUDLY. Huh, they won't be back any time soon!

The house is still a tip -- I'm too tired from dogwalking to cart stuff back down from upstairs. OK, I carried a dozen CDs down today. Should only take a few years to tidy up at that rate.

I had a reply from the greyhound trust regarding Bertie's ear tattoos. Apparently if the letters I told them are correct, he's 18 years old! So I think I've read it wrong. What I thought was A is possibly R, which would make him about five. They're like cars, one of the letters represents the year of birth.

Elvis Costello tells us which 500 records we absolutely must have to be happy. I have some of them, mainly his jazz and classical selections. The one I most want to listen to that I've never heard of is Agnes Bernelle: Father's Lying Dead on the Ironing Board. Eh?

A lot of the older stuff I was never a fan of in the first place -- Captain Beefheart, the Flying Burrito Brothers -- but some of the nostalgia selections make me think, yeah, I'd like to hear that again. Like the Four Tops, the Hollies, Prince ... I haven't got a single Prince album, how about that!

Yesterday was dog-day: my first day as a dog owner. It all went quite smoothly -- the dog (no name yet, see below) was ok in the car, is house-trained (or kennel-trained), enjoyed all his walks enormously and ate his dinner eventually (after first trying to "bury" it). He's bigger than I'd thought -- very tall and strong -- but that hasn't been a problem. He's ok on the lead generally, understands the word STOP. A bit nervous of cars and over-interested in anything that looks like it could possibly be a rabbit. No barking at all, though he did give a yowl when he saw the neighbour's cat in the back yard.

He had a new experience last night -- television. He happened to be standing in the doorway when I switched it on and he got a real fright. He stared at it, eyes bugging out, then backed slowly out of the room. Just an advert, nothing like Animal Hospital.

Today it's raining and when I let him out this morning he came straight back in & shook himself ostentatiously. I had to get dressed and take him out, stand over him until he went to the toilet. He's been joed out on his duvet ever since.

All Things Must Pass George Harrison's official site. "Not for the faint of bandwidth or resolution".

Everyone in New Zealand please watch out for bits of Mir. I think it's very decent of Helen to try and find those American tuna-fishers, good on her.

One more sleep and I'm a dog owner! I'm as excited as an excited person.

I still haven't done anything about tidying the house after the flooring onslaught -- why bother when it's only going to get dusty and dirty again? Next week will do. Tonight I'll set up the dog's "room" -- the wide part of the hallway by the back door. Bed on one side, food dishes on the other. I meant to get a piece of board for the stairgate but forgot. I could always cut a few bits of floorboard to size and slot them in I guess. This is to keep the dog downstairs until I'm sure he's toilet trained. But if he's lived in kennels he might not even know about stairs.

Leading suggestions for a new name: Bing (my favourite) and Kuri (Pinky's suggestion; Maori for dog). Pinky dismissed Jack and Finn McCool as too fashionable. So we're looking for something that is even MORE fashionable, ie fashionably unpopular. How awful if I called him something really great and it immediately became popular. There's this sort of trajectory to fashion, isn't there -- you start out with the situation that no-one in their right mind would name their child Mabel -- it's a granny's name, musty and mothballed. And you end up with kindie kids being Mabel C. and Mabel F. because there are so many of them. It goes rare/unpopular/uncool, uncommon/unpopular/cool, more common/more popular/still cool, common/popular/uncool, common/unpopular/uncool and back to the start. Also there's the age thing -- if your granny and her friends are all Mabel you name your baby Chantelle; if your granny's Chantelle you call your baby Mabel.

I'd better do some work.

Bad news on the floor front: it's not finished. Heavy sigh. Well, I thought Dougie was being optimistic. They're coming back next Sunday (at 8.30am! again!) to do the kitchen and finish off the beading in the rest of the downstairs. It does look better, I guess, and it certainly feels better. I can go downstairs in bare feet without risking frostbite.

I'm going to go ahead and get the dog on Thursday ... by Sunday he should be settled in enough not to freak out completely when strangers start destroying the kitchen. We'll go for a drive up to St Andrews or something, let Dougie and Bob get on with it. I went to visit him today, took a couple of photos which I'll put on the website once I get them developed. He was quite nervy but not in a snappy way, just trembling and starting at sudden movements. He is sooo tall, and elegant and beautiful. He got very excited when we left, thought he was going too, which was sad -- "see you on Thursday" means absolutely nothing to a dog!

Any name suggestions welcome: he's called Bertie at the home but honestly does not seem Bertie-ish. I like Finn, after Finn McCool, the Irish hero who built the Giant's Causeway so his girlfriend Staffa could get home to the Western Isles. I think one-syllable names are easier for dogs to pick up. He certainly doesn't react to Bertie. The woman who took us to his kennel asked if I was keeping the name. "Errr, I'm not sure..." I said. "I named him," she said, and I was glad I'd been diplomatic. She said she really likes greyhounds, and she's adopting one herself when she has a holiday, in June. So I gather from all that that she had wanted Bertie herself.

I did get some pots and plants on Saturday: I planted some lily bulbs (stargazer) and a little daisy bush. I also got seed trays and seeds for lobelias, aquelegias (sp?), night scented stock and nicotiana. Eventually I'll plant them, and the rocket seed too. The rocket is planted directly into the ground, I need to work a bit more on the bed before it's ready for that.

Brrrr ... I just got in from planting the blackcurrants, pardon me while I brush the snow off my jersey. Yup, real snow.

Meanwhile Dougie and Bob are beavering away laying the flooring. Mess, noise, Forth FM, cheeky chat, the works. They thought I was hilarious, gardening in the snow.

I have to go in to town in a bit, to collect my camera from work. I took it into the office rather than leave it in the car, ha ha -- in the excitement of gathering up the pots of blackcurrants I left it under the desk. Completely forgot about it until I was almost asleep, don't you hate those sudden blinding revelations late at night! I got up and phoned the security guard, got him to go and get it. I imagine he found it, too bad for me if he didn't.

I went back to the Cat and Dog Home today to reserve Bertie, just in case someone else claimed him before I do next week. There was a bit of hemming and hawing -- they don't usually reserve dogs for more than a day or so. But their logic was skewed: because greyhounds aren't the most popular dogs, if someone wants one they want to be able to say yes right away. And if it's reserved they can't. But it's reserved because I want it! They relented, seeing Bertie's been there a while, and I've got until next Thursday afternoon to pick him up. I couldn't go and visit him though, because it was closing time. They gave me some leaflets produced by the Retired Greyhound Trust, lots of detailed information about diet and care, and how to train your dog not to chase cats.

Every dog will chase a cat, but greyhounds can actually catch them.

The planks, underlay etc arrived today so it's all go for Dougie and Bob tomorrow. Oh joy.

Chad brought the blackcurrant and raspberry cuttings in, so I'll plant them in the morning. If the boys seem to be getting on all right I'll go out for a mooch around gardening centres. I'm thinking of getting some big tubs and pots for the patio and around the top of the retaining wall.

The wall itself I'm considering covering in mosaic -- I asked at the tile shop about offcuts and broken tiles, and they said they'll give me a load for nothing. I'd love to try a big doodly patchwork extravaganza, and if the tiles are free, that's great. I could add in bits of mirror and broken stuff I've collected as well. Andrew once gave me a beautiful ceramic seahorse, after we'd been to Barcelona and I was thinking of Gaudi-esque tilework for the bathroom in my old flat. "You could break it and use it for that," he suggested. I kept it on the windowsill, meaning to knock a nail in and hang it properly -- and one day caught it with the towel and it smashed in a zillion bits. I've got the bits in a bag. I've also got the bits of a Waipu tile of a cat with a jug of cream. That tile's been broken three times and repaired twice I think. I bought a new one last time I was in NZ, this time in a wooden frame.

And of course now I'm a prospective dog owner I'll be checking out pet shops for all the kit: collar, lead, toys, chews, brushes, worm tablets. I've got a spare duvet he can have to sleep on. He'll be downstairs by the back door, there's a perfect dog-sized area down there. Ooo, I'm so excited!

Madness in the news: you know the Mir is coming down soon? (Of course you do if you're in the Southern Hemisphere -- you're in the crash zone!) Well the Japanese in the area the debris will pass over are going to be told to stay indoors for 40 minutes. But we're also told that the big chunks of space station will be travelling at such a speed they can penetrate 6ft of concrete. So unless your house has a concrete roof 6ft 6in thick, you're doomed if it all goes horribly wrong. At least if you're outside you can duck.

I've picked out the dog I want, and all going well he'll move in next week. He's a greyhound and is white with a brindle patch on his face. The Cat and Dog Home got him as a stray but he's an ex-racer -- he has an ID number tattoed on his ears. The home has had him on a special diet to build him up, but he's still quite bony. Very tall, quiet but alert and friendly, and apparently playful once he gets to know you. Good with other dogs but will chase cats. His name at the home is Bertie, but he doesn't reallly look like a Bertie.

After chosing Bertie yesterday I went to see Best in Show, to see how demented I'll become once I'm a dog person. Yes, that'll be me in the pet shop screeching: "That's not a bee! It's a parrot!! You don't know my dog!"

Today was a completely wasted day, spent waiting for the carpet warehouse blokes to deliver the flooring. Their excuse: "The lorry isn't co-operating." They're coming at 10am tomorrow now. While waiting I ferried more stuff upstairs, so the house now looks ghastly everywhere. Every room is either horribly empty or ludicrously crammed. Except the toilet and the bathroom, they're pretty normal.

I just want it all to be over so I can relax and enjoy my home. But a chore on tomorrow's agenda is collecting some tile samples for the kitchen. I went into the shop yesterday to look at tiles and it was a nightmare. They quoted me for an average sort of price for the actual tiles, but of course I have such exquisite taste there was nothing in that price range I liked. My favourites were the Delft tiles, £13 EACH, never mind price per square metre. The small, plain, multicoloured tiles I'd admired were almost twice the quoted price. The cheaper tiles all have a tic: wobbly edges, "antiqued" effect, "artisan" finish. Ick, a tic. I spent almost an hour in the shop, which is small but jammed with display boards, and finally found a couple of candidates: thick, chunky-looking "biscuit" tiles, and a range of fairly inoffensive pastels. The biscuit tiles only come in a few colours: black, white, cream, blue and green. They were displayed in checks, and I imagine that could look good -- black and white, or cream and blue. They would be slightly retro. Hmmm.

Just to complicate matters the man said it would be ok if I got the tiles elsewhere, the quote for labour would be the same. So that widens the search to a massive number of tile emporia, including Fired Earth in Glasgow and the dreaded arty place in the High Street.

Chad says he'll bring the blackcurrant cuttings in tomorrow, and maybe a raspberry cane as well, so I'll be able to garden on Saturday while Dougie and Bob do their thing indoors. Unless it rains, of course, in which case I'll hide upstairs.

Gardening frenzy today: I moved two more hydrangea bushes to the front, where they'll probably wither and die from lack of sunlight. It's north-facing, and they're tucked in behind the fence so they won't even get all the morning sun. Hah! Take that you ... plant. I'm sure hydrangeas are lovely in some people's eyes. Not mine. They're old-lady plants (not that I have anything against old ladies of course). These ones are especially manky -- insipid not-quite-blue with a tink of pink [tink? that was meant to be tinge, but I prefer tink] and feeble spindly stalks with a few leaves. I tossed them a handful of compost, maybe that'll perk them up if the shock of being moved doesn't kill them. That leaves one still in the soon-to-be blackcurrant patch. Someone suggested I leave it in the streeet with a note: "Free to Good Home".

Had a chat with Frances next door, who tells me the bulbs coming up in the front are bluebells. I dug a load of them up during a heavy weeding session last year, damn. Anyway they reproduce themselves so probably no harm in thinning them out a bit. Everything is budding or already leafing out, you can nearly hear some plants growing they're shoving out foliage so fast. The honeysuckle is doing well after being bashed about by various tradesmen, and the rose bush out the back is coming away nicely too.

The elder at the back is also sprouting. Frances says her husband cut it down for Mrs Blacker a few years ago but it just grew back. I might cut it down too -- it only managed to squeeze out a few pathetic bunches of flowers and berries last year. I'd rather put an apple tree in there. The trouble is, you'd have to kill it stone dead, not sure how to do that without resorting to poison.

Next on the gardening agenda is reseeding the lawns -- they are both a mess of weeds and moss and crap (literally -- courtesy of the birds). Last year it was tragic looking out the upstairs window, my lawn and Jim & Rosemary's were like an advert for before and after -- guess whose was the "before". At the moment it's even worse, because I tramped around on the grass while it was frozen, a big no-no. It's all dead-looking and yellow between the steps and the bird-feeders.

Tomorrow after the windows bloke comes back with the mended window I'm going to the tile shop to drool over splashback solutions, then to see Best in Show. I need a week off, not just a day.

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.

I had an offline day off yesterday, bliss. I didn't answer the phone, didn't check my email. Just sloped around in my painting clothes, painting. I did the woodwork round the french doors -- two coats of primer and a coat of gloss white. Also washed the car, and did some extremely light housework. The living room is a bomb site. Tomorrow I'll continue moving stuff upstairs ready for Dougie next weekend. So the upstairs will be a bomb site as well. Maybe I should go and live in the shed, it's marginally tidier than anywhere else, with the added bonus that it doesn't matter if I drip paint/varnish on anything.

This morning I did some quality loafing with the paper, a big mistake -- the glorious sunshine had become heavy rain by the time I was washed and dressed.

I've turned a non-smoking corner (if you get my drift...) -- my sense of smell is back. I went to the supermarket on my way home on Friday and was blown away by how good everything smelled. Mmmmm fresh basil! And the broccoli! Yum! The fish section smelled so deliciously of Arbroath smokies I suspected Tesco of installing some kind of automatic scent machinery, like the ghastly air-freshener in the toilets at work (there's a strange little hum, and suddenly you're choking on concentrated Spring Breeze) but nicer. I did have a cigar in the pub during the break on Friday, one of the little skinny ones. But the return of lovely smells is a real incentive not to go back to my peak consumption of 10 a day. Cigarettes, not packets, I never was a heavy smoker.

The Sims extension pack is slightly disappointing. The llama topiary was exciting for a minute, but there doesn't see to be much in the way of architectural extras.

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.

Two days off coming up, not a moment too soon. Last week was exhausting. Even yesterday was tiring, and that was a day off. I haven't got a lot planned for my days off, hurrah!

Today I went for a great walk, over an hour of brisk healthy striding. The roads were thronging with other brisk walkers -- the cross-country footpaths are pretty much all shut down because of the foot and mouth outbreak. The Dalmeny estate is on a war footing: the main estate entrance and the estate farm entrance were covered in straw and guards had been posted to make sure visitors used the disinfectant footbath.

The more I learn about foot and mouth, the more baffled I am. I'd always thought it was a dread disease, on a par with leprosy or bubonic plague -- in fact it's been called a plague in headlines in A Certain Newspaper. But it turns out it's about as serious as a bout of the flu. If you leave the sick pigs and cows alone they get better. One writer said the wholesale slaughter was an economic thing: infected livestock lose condition & weight and aren't worth as much. And because it spreads so fast it's better to kill all the animals in an infected herd than risk gazillions more animals getting it and being worth less. Apparently.

The other thing, of course, is that you can vaccinate livestock against foot and mouth disease. But that costs money, and again, apparently it's cheaper to risk having to slaughter all your animals than to make sure they don't get sick in the first place.

Meanwhile, back in my disease-free habitat, Dougie and Bob are coming in a fortnight's time to do the floors. He reckons it will take two days: Saturday and Sunday. I have to go in to the warehouse tomorrow and make sure they've got all the right stuff, which they'll then deliver. In the week before Dougie arrives, I'll have to move as much furniture upstairs as possible. The windows blokes are coming on Thursday. If they fix the boards around the french doors then, I can sand and varnish them over the following few days, so they'll be finished before Dougie and Bob get stuck in.

I have fantasies of painting the livingroom before the floors are done, but I have to stamp them down. I would have to scrape off all the embossed wallpaper first, ghastly business, then no doubt plaster over various holes and cracks before painting, or put up lining paper. Just too complicated, messy, time-consuming and tiring. Same with the dining room. I've more or less decided on colours -- darkish green for the dining room, perhaps with dark red velvet curtains and a lightshade with some kind of crystals or sparkles; and my favourite pale adam green for the living room with white dotted muslin curtains. I'd like to recover the sofa and chairs in lighter shades too, cream and pink maybe.