A small accident whilst painting newly boarded up fireplaces

Pot dropped. Paint flew. Ottoman kilim drippng white onto floor. Minor accident. Major spectacle.

And here is a funny little story, also 1st November 2011:

All the rubbish left outside by the British Gas heating engineers was collected today, including all three discarded storage heaters (weighing a ton!). I could not watch the guy moving them, just prayed that he wasn't going to injure himself!

About 15 minutes before he came (strangely in a huge DHL Van - obviously contracted by British Gas to do removals), I saw a small middle aged, well dressed man rummaging around outside. He seemed to be measuring one of the heaters. He disappeared, but shortly afterwards came back again and started to unscrew the covers on one the heaters. I went out - he apologised profusely for not coming to ask first, and explained that he had been looking for a thermostat for one of his heaters, that they had become unobtainable, and that the one on the discarded heater was exactly the right thing. He was equipped with all the right tools (appearing from his coat pocket), and deftly managed to remove the thermostat from the old heater. He was extremely grateful that I was not cross. And I was not at all. On the contrary, I helped steadying the heater whilst he used his tools, all the while smoking a cigarette.

I detected an accent, and we established our non-British origins: he is Portuguese, I am Swiss. He explained that his English wife is embarrassed about his rummaging, so she stayed in the car out of sight..... The removal successfully completed, he bowed in gratitude, gallantly kissed my hand and went away, the thermostat in his pocket, a happy man. I was happy, too, that a bit of the discarded heater had been useful to someone. And happy that he had come back just in time!

Autumn 2011

First of November 2011. 1.11.11

Sitting on a bus on a glorious Autumn day - the roadside is bursting with colour. A big fat cumulus cloud squatting on the horizon, in a blank clear blue sky. The low sun is guilding whatever it touches. Even mundane things like Sainsbury shopping bag glow orange in the early afternoon sun: the people scuttling across the road by the shop, carrying orange lanterns! They look like they are hurrying to some ceremonial gathering

On the way back, an hour later, the dance of colours continues to delight. The same fat cloud still sits low on the horizon, in exactly the same place, happy to be there.