Friday 24th October 2025

On Thursday, the final instalment in Philip Pullman's Book of Dust trilogy arrived. But as its been a few years since The Secret Commonwealth came out, I thought I had better read that first before starting on the new tome.

Jools was up early going to yoga, so I got up at six, woke up and made a brew.

Without a hob, no coffee for me, and as much as I like tea, first thing in the morning, teas doesn't cut the mustard.

The bins were put out and then a shower before the fitter arrived to start on the 5th day.

Its beginning to look like a kitchen with units on the wall and along the sides. And as the day went on, ore of the same. All being fitted using a laser to measure the gaps, so it will be perfect.

It was a glorious sunny and warm day, so I sat outside with Scully, ready the book and watching the birds. Scully curled up beside me and was purring in her sleep.

Jools came back, so we had breakfast, then was out again for her craft meeting at the library, so I carried on, holding the fort.

As it were.

Jools brought coffee and croissants back, so we had lunch, then the afternoon stretched out as the drilling, banging went on in the kitchen.

The new fridge freezer was switched on, and worked almost silently. On Saturday we will transfer the food over from the old one, and try to lift that out to be scrapped.

No dinner to prepare: one, as we have nowhere to cook, but two, we were taking Jen out for a curry at Chef de Mumbai at the Swingate.

These would be the first curries Jools and I would have had since coming back from India.

We picked up Jen, then drove back to Swingate, parked. And once inside shown to our table.

I had Pani Puri to start, which was Popular Street food, Hollow semolina shell stuffed with potatoes,Chickpeas. Flavoured with fresh mint, corainder tamarind water.

I followed that with dahl, rice and garlic naan. And there was beer and wine.

We dined well, and the owner was delighted to see us back, and made us very welcome indeed.

Jools drove us back, dropping Jen off first, back time to see the last half hour of the Leeds v West Ham game.

I fell asleep.