Working at home again today. As I type there is an occasional shower of plaster dust overhead and a lot of banging. New carpet you see. I have relocated office for the morning as my normal phone connection involves a long extension cord through the room the carpet layers are in and I felt that that was tempting fate a bit. So I disconnected the cable and set up in dining room. I forgot that this was directly underneath the room being carpeted and so my concentration, such as it is, is broken by the hammering above. I'm also a bit concerned about the large wardrobe that we couldn't get out of the room. 'No problem' they said, and indeed there are four strappin' lads up there, but I really don't want any damage to happen to it.

I just realised that I have no idea what this carpet looks like. Sally chose it and if I remember correctly it's a chocolate brown, but I really don't know. And is it milk chocolate, or dark? We shall see. She also chose the wallpaper for the room and I haven't seen that yet either. We had hoped to have it up before the carpet came, but no luck. Fortunately wallpapering is relatively mess free and shouldn't cause any damage.

Is it universal that men don't care about furnishings? I have opinions mind you, but I really don't think that Sally could choose anything I found totally objectionable. So I let her get on with it. This, some might say, is a total abdication of responsibility, but I know that my input is generally unhelpful in this area and while I could devote time and energy to refining my taste, would it be worth it? Sally would prefer if I occasionally did some of this stuff, but we don't decorate often enough for it to be a real bone of contention.

The other disadvantage to working in the dining room (apart from having to carry the laptop into the next room to get a phone connection) is that Paddy can see me through the window in the door. This results in a lot of door knob rattling and shouting ('open! door!'). When he gets in, he tends to busy himself tossing the books stacked under the window onto the floor, but he does occasionally demand access to the 'buttons' and sits on my knee (it must be my left), opening and closing the CD drive.

Sally then tempts him away with food or TV and peace returns for a while.

I was stopped by the cops on my way back from Galway (in Ballinasloe in fact) and I have no idea why. The patrol car was behind me but I was observing the speed limit and I don't think that I was breaking any other rules of the road. Anyway the car suddenly zoomed past me and stopped almost immediately in front of me, the Guard in the passenger seat leaping out and waving me into the side of the road. I was surprised I wasn't nervous. I usually am regardless of any wrong doing, but not this time. My window of course doesn't open and I had to open the door to talk to him. He asked various questions, chief among them being why was my tax out of date. I mumbled various replies of an ineffectual nature until I basically said that it was a fair cop guv. The tax was up at the end of October and you usually have a month's grace before anyone starts to bother you, but I didn't point this out.

I still don't know why I was pulled over and I must remember in future to always carry my license and insurance details. This will of course be compulsory in January, but if I had thought of it for that trip I could have saved myself the hassle of going to the local station to present them. I mustn't forget as this would result in a court summons and would probably be in Galway and really, I could do without that.

Anna is dropping very broad hints about seeing the Harry Potter movie. Conjecturing about whether or not we'd get to see it before it finished it's run. We did miss The Lord of the Rings, but not from lack of trying. So it looks like I'm taking her soon.

Ah. They've started vacuuming upstairs. They must be nearly finished. Oh the antici

pation.

Update: It's a sort of burgandy, actually.