It’s a good thing that we did so well yesterday, because our planned 4 days of wall-building has rather fallen apart this week. First, the Sage has decided to go to the funeral of his friend, whose death I mentioned the other day. It’s 4 hours drive away, so it’s quite a commitment for him, but he’d known her and her family for nearer 50 years than 40 and he’s not that likely to keep in touch with her son and daughter in future, so he feels he’d like to.

And today it rained, so bricklaying was off the agenda. Instead, I did the paperwork that I’ve been ignoring. D’you know, it was really difficult to get stuck into it. I worked for a long time, but kept allowing myself to be distracted. It had to be done though, wall or no wall. One part was for a meeting this evening, and the other was for the agenda of next Tuesday’s. In addition of course, I had a load of emails that had to be replied to and phone calls to make – they were not part of the distraction, they were necessary but time-consuming. One was from my tenant saying that the boiler is on the blink – he is, lovely chap that he is, dealing with it himself, but I replied under the complete misapprehension that it was the other tenant. Coincidentally, he (Tenant Number 2, whose name might be James) rang up this evening, wanting to okay a couple of small alterations he’d like to make in the flat, so he put me right. I had to send another email to Tenant Number 1 (shall we simply call him Andrew?) apologising that I’d got things all wrong.

This afternoon, I played the organ for the funeral of an old man I used to deliver Meals on Wheels to. 87 years old, he was born in the village and died here, although he lived in Luton for a few of the decades in between.

Now, just after 11 pm, I’m still eating dinner. Damn these evening meetings.

Apart from the fact that I’d much rather have been outside, the other reason I couldn’t concentrate this morning – in fact, I felt quite dull and lethargic – was that I was awake for over an hour coughing in the night. I woke before 2, and although I could, after a while, control the impulse to cough, it took enough effort that, as I relaxed into sleep, the cough reflex kicked in again and woke me up. I drank water, I sucked a peppermint that has been sitting by the bath for the last few weeks (no, it wasn’t dusty, it was wrapped) and nothing seemed to help. I contemplated going downstairs for some honey, which does seem to have an effect, but it was just that bit more effort than I was prepared to go to. Let’s hope the rain has laid the pollen low.

Oh, I seem to have joined another committee. Well, a working party. Hang on, and another one too. Fortunately, the day that one meets next is on a day I’m at Hampton Court. So I just agreed to go along with whatever they decided.