What I've been reading

Lessons in Chemistry
by Bonnie Garmus

narrated by Miranda Raison

"Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute take a very unscientific view of equality."

This is what I'm looking for, a well written story with believable characters who aren't stupid and follow a realistic trajectory through the book. And, as a delightful bonus, I hadn't anticipated the ending and it was wonderful.

Teachers of Enlightenment
by Kulananda

"Out of the depths of a clear blue sky emerges a beautiful tree of white lotus flowers. On it appear many teachers of Enlightenment - historical, mythical and transcendental. Here are explained the significance of the figures on the Refuge Tree of the Triratna Buddhist Order."

This is the required reading for my next big retreat in June, and it's actually a book I've been meaning to read for a while now. In easily digestible form it contains all the background that I need (at the moment) about some of the most important mythical and historical figures within all branches of ancient Buddhism (Indian, Japanese, Tibetan and Chinese), as well as more recent teachers.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
by John Le Carré

narrated by Michael Jayston

"The man he knew as Control is dead, and the young Turks who forced him out now run the Circus. But George Smiley isn't quite ready for retirement - especially when a pretty, would-be defector surfaces with a shocking accusation: a Soviet mole has penetrated the highest level of British Intelligence."

I don't get on with John Le Carré's spy novels. I knew this before I borrowed this one, but I thought with time maybe things have changed. No, they haven't. I don't understand his plots or characters, and when the reveal of the spy came at the end I didn't have any particular thrill of recognition or interest in how it had come about. He's just not for me.

Everything I Never Told You
by Celeste Ng

narrated by Cassandra Campbell

"When Lydia's body is found in a lake, her father is consumed by guilt and sets out on a reckless path. Her mother, devastated and vengeful, is determined to make someone accountable. Lydia's brother, Nathan, is convinced that local bad boy Jack is involved. But it's the youngest in the family - Hannah - who may be the only one who knows what really happened."

This was a beautifully constructed story, with the death of sixteen year old Lydia as the central point while we find out piecemeal what led up to her death and the subsequent consequences. The relationships within the family felt so real, and despite the sadness inherent in almost every chapter, somehow it wasn't depressing. Not uplifting either, maybe poignant is the right word.

A jolly hot weekend

Kew Gardens, May 2026

After the slight trauma of the broadband and landline difficulties at mum's, I went on to stay with Lola II and Mr M for a London minibreak. Lola II had helpfully planned our activities, starting with an outdoor film in their garden on Friday evening, complete with projector, screen and three-way headphone splitter. The film was much more gory than any of us usually choose - I was watching through my fingers for some of the time.

On Saturday Lola II and Mr M occupied themselves elsewhere for the day and I treated myself to a badminton event (spectating not playing). It was in Alexandra Palace Theatre, which turned out to be an excellent venue, and it was a new competition for young players who are at a higher standard than county leagues but not quite national team level. I had a great time, not least because I happened to be sitting next to a couple of enthusiastic and interesting men, but also because some of the people I volunteer with at the international event in Birmingham were also there, and it was lovely to see them.

In the evening I rejoined Lola II and Mr M to see a play at the local theatre in Ealing about some elderly residents in a home. It was a comedy, although it portrayed some uncomfortable bullying. There were a few delightful performances as well as a very talented singer, but someone in the audience laughed so loudly that it was intrusive. Despite this, whenever I go to the theatre I always come away thinking that I don't go to the theatre often enough.

I had volunteered to provide a 3-course picnic for the following day, so on Sunday morning I did some of the preparation and cooking for that, before Lola II and I headed out to the National Gallery to see an exhibition by a Spanish painter called Zurbarán. I'm no expert on art but I particularly liked the way he painted the textures of cloth and fabric. Saturday had been quite a hot day and Sunday was the same, but it was relatively cool inside the gallery. Mr M joined us for supper at a Sri Lankan restaurant which we ate outside accompanied by live blues music from the venue next door.

Monday was the hottest day so far and we had decided to go to Kew Gardens. The following day we read that the temperature that day at Kew broke all records (and it was even hotter on Tuesday), but we set off early and were even allowed in before the general public because Mr M has a civil service benefit that got him and Lola II in for free, and half price for me. We saved £80! Mr M heroically carried all the picnic, which we ate as an early lunch. 

After a quick climb and walk around the Treetop Walk, Lola II and I set off to book places on a tour of the sculpture installation by Henry Moore. We arrived one minute after booking started to find that all places had already been snapped up. This was no bad thing, because standing in the sun looking at sculptures would have been pretty uncomfortable. Instead, on the advice of a lady at the tour booking desk, Lola II and I visited a building where they were exhibiting some of his smaller sculptures alongside some lovely botanical drawings. We agreed that we didn't really like Henry Moore all that much, so we counted ourselves lucky to have missed the tour. And that building was air conditioned - very welcome indeed at this point.

Kew was lovely, but overwhelmingly hot and mostly green - there didn't seem to be many flowers except in the glasshouses, and roses. Is there any time of year when there aren't roses? The redwoods were beautiful too. We had a break for afternoon cakes sitting in the shade, we played one of the new games I was given by a man who lives and works at the retreat centre where I volunteer. He suggested that I try collaborative (rather than competitive) games, and this one was very unusual. I won't try to describe it, but I'm not sure how it would go down with my U3A group. We played the other collaborative game that evening, and it was much easier to understand and play but again I'm not sure if it would be enjoyed by the U3A people.

I have omitted some of the many happenings that occur when I spend time with Lola II and Mr M, including the substitution of Kenneth, Roger, Demi and Ilkley for Henry Moore, the subsequent misunderstanding of "varieties of trees in Kew Gardens" as "varieties of cheeses on Ilkley Moor", the Horror of the Permanent Marker, the falling asleep during the bedtime story and probably many more stories. But it was a great way to spend the hottest days of the year so far, and a nice break from all the issues connected with selling a house.

Going live

Maternal Manor, May 2026

My estate agent's representative, whom I'm going to call Mr Celery (because he's tall, thin, and very Seller-y) told me that he appreciates that I am not in a tearing hurry, that I now need a solicitor, and that I won't regret placing the sale with his company. The sales board is up outside the house and we went through the brochure together to eliminate the spelling mistakes, so we were ready for going live on Friday. People keep asking how I feel. At the moment it's still just a project I'm working on, and I'm not looking forward to the time when it sinks in and I become very sad indeed to be leaving.

One issue that still needs addressing is a broken electrical socket in the bedroom. "I can deal with this," I thought, as I identified the fuse in the fuse box, turned off the power to the sockets, unscrewed the wires from the front plate and took the broken back box off the wall. After trips to B&Q, Wickes and the wonderful Action 21 I could only find replacement boxes that had screws in a different place, and I hate it when I experience this sort of helpless incompetence. Luckily, Nameless Man is happy to help out, although our combined busy timetables mean he can't get started until later this week.

My last session with the Diabetes Prevention Programme coach has taken place, although she says I can ask my GP to be re-referred if I think it will help. I may just do that. Due to some relaxation of my willpower during the volunteering in the retreat kitchen I now have to take my eating habits a bit more seriously, and have laid down a couple of new intentions for the next few weeks. I can safely say that this will be No Fun At All.

Mr Celery has already found me two people who want an early viewing before the date that we had set for the main house viewing event. I finished all the weeding, mowed the lawn again, and the main thing remaining is to clean a few windows to make it look that bit more attractive. That was the last day before the massive heatwave that we're experiencing arrived, so I'm glad I managed to get nearly everything done before we all melted.

Then I headed south to see mum and to supervise the transition from copper wire internet and POTS (plain old telephone system) to fibre broadband. There was an engineer who came into the house and another who climbed the telephone pole and strung the new wire to the house. But my suspicions were raised when the engineer said he couldn't set up two wired phones on the new router. He left an extra telephone box and advised me to contact the company to activate the second phone, and told me many things that turned out not to be true. So I had a very difficult conversation with the company which has left me regretting my choice of supplier despite the very competitive price, because we can't have two wired phones on the new system after all, despite having been assured that we could.

Mum has been very flexible and adaptable, and has accepted stoically the loss of her usual phone number for about two weeks (I really hope that the company hasn't misled me about this too). She has one landline phone with a new (hopefully temporary) number and is carrying her mobile phone around with her. Lola II and I are working on getting her a couple of digital cordless phones that are relatively easy to use, and we'll see how things go.

Nearly there

April 2026

So I am living two parallel lives at the moment, volunteering at my favourite retreat centre at the same time as negotiating with the Estate Agent over the brochure that they're putting together. They agreed with my comments about the pictures in the draft brochure and Sister D kindly helped me to re-write the whole thing. The next draft I received still had significant problems, so I'll be meeting the estate agent in person to try and get it all sorted out ready for the date we've agreed to go live. I really need to find a suitable name for this very keen salesman who seems to pay very little attention to detail (Mr M may be able to come up with something...) This does worry me, but at least I'm aware of it before we start.

At the retreat centre I'm working in the kitchen on the menus for people with food allergies and intolerances. It's nice to be back and I've been made very welcome. One person has such a restricted diet that, in combination with other people's restrictions, they're all getting no veg beyond carrot, broccoli, peppers, spring greens and kale, which doesn't sound too bad until you've cooked carrot, potato and ginger soup and steamed or roasted broccoli, carrot and peppers for their two meals a day and then have to do much the same again next day. Roasted veg, steamed veg, soups - I even decided to sculpt decorative carrots just to try and make it look more interesting, even though the taste was the same.

I had two days off when I had to come home to do what's needed there, not least because the phone signal at the retreat centre is a bit poor and I needed to make some heavy duty calls. One of these was to try and find a broadband and landline deal for mum, because her current provider is removing the landline option that she needs. Running the phones via WiFi should be as straightforward as plugging them into the router with an adapter, until you consider that the phones she uses are not in the same room as the router. I think we have a solution; we will only find out for sure when installation commences next week.

In GRUHI news, the bricks are gone! The remainder were collected by a lovely woman who's going to make some sort of platform for the water butt on her allotment. She even volunteered to take the ones she didn't want to the tip for me. The clean up operation on the garden is nearly complete, inside is looking good too with just a couple more things that I can get on top of when I get back from the retreat centre.

A bit too much

Just a cow I met, September 2025

At Maternal Manor I started to tackle the water leak issue by contacting Thames Water via their Chat facility to find out how serious the problem is based on the readings from the water meter. After 90 minutes and three different agents who ignored my specific question I was passed to someone new who just gave me the answer I wanted. During the chat I not only took mum out to visit a friend but also went up into the loft to see what was there and how much space there might be - only to discover that there is a distinct noise of trickling water coming from the tank. Lola II nobly volunteered to contact a plumber. The kitchen trench is probably dry enough to be filled in now so there's a whole lot more work involved in getting two quotes for the full kitchen refurbishment so we can go back to the insurer.

I finally did it - I contacted one of the estate agents and started the process of selling Lola Towers.  I spent a full day making the house ready for photos - mowing the lawn, a trip to the tip with the remains of the garden table, putting everything out of sight into cupboards and the garage. It was all tidy enough for photos, but there will need to be a whole lot more cleaning before I'll be happy for people to see it close up. And it was utterly exhausting. 

The estate agent rep (who is very enthusiastic) took photos and measurements, next day someone else did some drone photography, and another person came to complete the Energy Performance Certificate and floor plan. The draft brochure for the house arrived from the estate agent, and while it does look very nice I've got quite a lot of work to do in tidying it up and suggesting different wording for the worst bits. Meanwhile someone else came and took more surplus bricks away, I touched up the paint on the Auditorium walls and the hall ceiling, and I remain exhausted.

A weekend with friends in Nottingham provided some respite, except it meant less time at home for the jobs that remain. A blood donation didn't go well and left me with a very painful arm, and a Buddhist film night at my house was so undersubscribed that I invited Nameless Man (who's not a Buddhist) to join us just to make it worth showing the film. That was probably the last public screening in my Auditorium. And a friend from Ireland came to stay on the way to a retreat. She is in the process of being diagnosed as having coeliac disease and has been pretty ill with it, so it's important that my host duties include keeping her away from gluten. At least that's within my skillset.

It's all a bit much, really. It's to be expected because in April I really cut down on my commitments but in May I didn't hold back, and I've ended up with a bit too much to do. But I'm keeping myself steady and focussed, trying to prioritise the urgent things and not stress about the rest.

What I've been reading

Dr Zhivago
by Boris Paternak

narrated by Phillip Madoc

"The epic story of the life and loves of a poet-physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to shelter in the Ural Mountains, Yuri Zhivago finds himself embroiled in a battle between the Whites and the Reds, and in love with the beautiful nurse Lara."

I just keep trying with these Russian authors but I don't get on with them (with the notable exception of Tolstoy). Maybe it's because I get confused with the names, maybe it's the unfamiliar context, maybe the Russian style of writing or the quality of the translation. The narration was not great either; none of the characters was distinguishable by their voice beyond 'male' or 'female'. The book seemed to go on and on, without me sympathising, liking or even disliking any of the characters; I couldn't tell you who lived and who died or any of the key points of the story, and it's only been a few days since I finished it.

Stone Blind
by Natalie Haynes

narrated by The Author

"When the sea god Poseidon commits an unforgivable act in the temple of Athene, the goddess takes her revenge where she can – and Medusa is changed forever. Writhing snakes replace her hair, and her gaze now turns any living creature to stone."

What a contrast to the previous book! Obviously the context of Ancient Greece and its mythic inhabitants, both divine and corporeal, is not familiar to me, but this author and her narration were stunning. I knew about as much about the story of Medusa as I did about the Russian revolution, but despite the Greek names I could tell you what was done by whom, to whom and why. I adore Natalie Haynes comedy on BBC Sounds  (11 series so far, go and listen to a few episodes why don't you) and it seems her books are just as good. Makes me want to learn more about Ancient Greece, and there's no higher praise than that.

Breathing Lessons
by Anne Tyler

narrated by Suzanne Toren

"Maggie and her husband Ira drive from Baltimore to Deer Lick to attend the funeral of the husband of Serena, Maggie's childhood friend. During the course of the journey we are shown all there is to know about a marriage: the expectations; the disappointments; the way children can create storms in a family."

This whole book covers just one day in the life of a married couple, with context added via flashbacks. I enjoyed it despite the main female character being incredibly annoying, but I got a sense of how her husband loved her anyway. The narration was good and the whole experience very satisfying.

The Prince
by Niccolò Machiavelli

"The Prince shocked Europe on publication with its advocacy of ruthless tactics for gaining absolute power and its abandonment of conventional morality."

A very interesting read of a really good translation that brings alive the scale and reality of warfare, the cheapness of lives, and the price of power in Machiavelli's world. He draws on historical accounts of Greeks and Romans as well as more recent history of Italy to illustrate why particular leaders succeeded or failed in taking power and holding on to it. "Is it better to be feared or loved?" he asks, and the answer is argued with evidence for and against. "The answer is that one would like to be both the one and the other; but because it is difficult to combine them both, it is far better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both."

Consideration of furniture

Scarborough, April 2026

I've been at Maternal Manor for a few days either side of a weekend break in York. Mum and I have continued to weed out all sorts of items - clothes, furniture and much else - and have been celebrating that there seem to be no more stamps or envelopes stashed away anywhere. We're doing a little bit of forward planning, imagining where my stuff might fit in the house, what I will put into storage and what I will get rid of. There are three large items of furniture that we agreed can be removed. One is the oval kitchen table that dad made about 45 years ago, the second is a large wardrobe in the second bedroom upstairs (soon to be my bedroom), and the third is a sofabed whose foam mattress disintegrates more every time it is moved. 

We asked the British Heart Foundation to take the wardrobe and the table; they asked if the table came with any chairs so mum considered the chair situation and decided that she could give them the six kitchen chairs and keep the six dining chairs. When they came they rejected the wardrobe saying it couldn't be safely extracted with the stair lift in the way, so I spent a couple of hours taking it apart. I took the bits that would fit in my car to the tip, and the rest is awaiting further consideration in the garage. We put a small set of wooden drawers on the driveway next to the pavement, because in the past people have helpfully taken such things. I had my doubts, as they weren't particularly attractive or sound, but they disappeared almost immediately.

Mum had a few jolly and no-so-jolly trips out. After her Covid vaccination we went to Lidl and to the tip (with the wardrobe bits), and on another day I took her to the dentist. All the people she meets at these places are, without exception, incredibly kind - the receptionist at the dentist offered to remove their barriers to parking on the forecourt next time we visit. She has new gardeners who are also very pleasant and helpful, although she is somewhat doubtful of their skills at distinguishing plants from weeds.

My jolly trip was to York where I spent a couple of days with my friend T, and we went to Scarborough together. The weekend weather was glorious, but being on the coast Scarborough with a fresh breeze was a few degrees colder than York, so I got somewhat chilled. We ate chips and ice cream on the sea front and T paddled in the sea - that's her in the photo. I declined the opportunity to paddle, being cold enough already.

Back at Maternal Manor the kitchen trench is drying out nicely with the dehumidifier in action, but I've done a couple more tests on the water supply. Unfortunately there still seems to be water being lost somewhere in the system - with my newly acquired expertise gained from Severn Trent I'm aware that it's possible that it's being lost via the drains rather than into the floor, walls or foundations.

His Majesty's Revenue and Customs featured significantly during my visit. I called the technical helpline about online access to my tax accounts, the call was answered almost immediately and my problem completely solved. Mum's tax issue on a separate call to the tax helpline took a little longer, and was probably resolved - we'll know in a couple of weeks. I hope never to have to call them again, but that hope is probably unrealistic.

Local news of local people

Just an alpaca I met, October 2025

Following on from my last post, it turns out that UJ had confused the English words for vinyl records (which she didn't want), and the turntable (which she did). In the end she took the amp as well as the record player, and I delivered them to her temporary home along with the vases and lamps she had left with me, and some other random items of hers that I found. To store them she opened the garage which was stuffed so full that my precious turntable had to be balanced carefully on the top of a pile of other goods. I am trying not to think about the likelihood that it will be usable when she finally gets round to having a place to set it up.

Which left me with about 120 LP records, so I took them round to a second-hand record shop in Leamington which advertised that they would buy record collections for cash. They phoned me later in the day to offer me £120 for them, which I happily took. Together with my eBay activity, I have made more than £660 (and 12 Oaks) so far.

I'm focusing on just two areas at the moment - the garden and the Auditorium, where the water stains have faded now that the weather has improved. Jlf 6 painted over one area with stain blocker paint, and then I found another patch and took on the painting myself for a change instead of employing someone else. This is mainly due to the time factor, but actually there's an awful lot more to do and I'm thinking about getting help in just to get it done in a reasonable amount of time. Painting is quite a satisfying activity and I haven't messed it up or spilt paint on anything important so far (but it's not yet finished).

The garden is jolly hard work. Clearing all the paving of moss and weeds is backbreaking, and then there are the bricks. One person came round and took five of them away, which is lovely for them and five fewer for me but my estimate was that there were at least sixty more. I was talking about this to a friend who works in a school, and she looked thoughtful for a moment and then said that she might be able to help. Next day she texted that she would take them all, but it turned out there were far more than my estimate - after she'd taken all that would fit in her van there are still about a hundred left.

Before Christmas I went to a LETS social gathering where I met a couple who mentioned that they were looking to move somewhere nearer to the town centre. so I invited them to come round. I reminded them of the invitation recently, they came last week and delighted in the house and its location. The chances of this working out in terms of timing and finances are slim, but you never know. They are struggling so much with de-cluttering that they are employing a professional Declutterer to help them - who knew such people existed? I still haven't contacted the estate agents again and am definitely feeling some emotional resistance at the moment.

I'll end with two contrasting aspects of Leamington. First news item: a man's body was found in the river in the park at the end of my road on Wednesday, and a murder investigation has begun. A police flyer has come through my door asking for witnesses to anything suspicious on the night of the crime. 

Second news item: on Friday I went to a fundraising gig for the Peace Festival at a venue right next to the location of the murder, where three local acts were performing. I'd seen Benji Kirkpatrick before at Temperance; the second band (Satsangi) included one of my Buddhist friends, and the third act was a DJ - Dr Trippy - who is the husband of my LETS friend who also sings in the local choir I've been to see. One of the organisers of the gig and the Peace Festival is another LETS person who also helps to run the Repair Cafe...

Three other Buddhist friends were in the audience as well as a whole lot of other LETS acquaintances (including the couple who had visited my house earlier in the day), and I even recognised and said hello to the man who sold me my home music system. I was quite pleased that I not only worked out why he seemed familiar, but even remembered his name. It was a terrific gig. It's been a good week. No wonder I'm feeling some reluctance to start the formal process of moving away.

Moving forward

Jlfs 3, 4, 5 and 6 at work, April 2026

The Severn Trent Water investigation last week meant that there was no need to dig up the pavement, so the scaffolding went up before Easter in preparation for painting the front of the house (masonry and woodwork). I am tempted to skip the naming of these contractors (scaffolding and painting) given that I am hoping to need no more tradesmen before quitting Lola Towers but that would be tempting fate, so let's call them collectively Jlf. 

Jlf 1 is managing the project, Jlf 2 arranged the scaffolding which was erected by Jlfs 3, 4 and 5, and Jlf 6 has been doing the actual preparation and painting. There was much flaking paint and he reported from the eaves that the wooden decoration was at risk of actually dropping off, so the whole job is very timely. All of these people have been delightful to work with, although it turns out that Jlf 6 does not drink anything but tea and there were a couple of hot days, so I had my work cut out making sure he survived. The Jlfs arrived to take the scaffolding down on the next working day - I'm not sure they were the same Jlfs but it's hard to tell them apart: they move very quickly. They all called me 'Bab', which is a very Brummie nickname and made me smile. The front of the house is now eye-wateringly white.

In my regular GRUHI report there has been more eBay action - the vintage Meccano that belonged to dad received huge numbers of views and watchers but disappointingly just a single bid, so that buyer got a bargain. In contrast, the Denby crockery I bought about 30 years ago has so far brought in about £45 with more to come. And, because listing and postage were so easy, I put 17 old car and motorcycle tax discs on eBay and got a fiver for them. There's just no predicting what people want. The question of why I had 17 old car and motorcycle tax discs will remain unanswered; I don't have them any more, so that's a step forward.

I remain a regular visitor to the tip for both landfill and recycling, and made an appointment to take the evil gardening poisons there. The garden had its first mow of the year to reveal that grass is now about 30% of the lawn as 70% is moss. It's lovely and green and spongy so I don't care. The first car-full of garden clippings went to the tip too.

I finally got round to dealing with the bricks that were left over from the kitchen extension in 2019 by offering them within the local LETS group (the cashless trading system I'm part of). Who would have thought this would be the most attractive offer out of all the things I have tried to pass on? Three different people want them, although it might take a while for them to come and collect, and I have more potential recipients in reserve.

The visit from the Secretary of the Leamington History Group finally took place, shortly after I unearthed a treasure trove of historical documents when I was thinning out my filing cabinet. She was a strange bird, and seemed less interested in the history of the house than informing me that Wisden was probably not connected with the cricket ground despite people suggesting that he was (I had made no such claim). She has borrowed all the documents but said that her Group probably wouldn't want to keep them and I should perhaps offer them to the County Record Office.

I'm taking leave of my vinyl records too. One of the Buddhists kindly offered to digitise the five records that I want to keep, and in return he had the pick of the collection for himself. I've sold the rest to UJ - I didn't really want to because she doesn't have a settled home yet, and as far as I know she doesn't have a turntable to  play them on. But she did ask for them and it seems unfair not to let her have them as she does seem to like having things a great deal.

There have been some less arduous things going on too. A lunchtime organ recital was advertised at the nearest church so I thought I'd pop in, but didn't enjoy it all that much because the organist was frankly Not Very Good. U3A walking and board games were suspended for Easter and then again because of scaffolding and painting supervision. I spent a morning at the Repair Café advertising LETS and trying to shift a few more of my own things - someone with a very large garden took the walky talkies and I came away with two goose eggs. Apparently they're very good for cakes, but I ate them scrambled for breakfast and they were all right - I wouldn't go out of my way to acquire more.

Still a lot going on

March 2026

I have been doing what feels like full time work on GRUHI, but I'm trying to set aside a bit of time for human interaction.

Cousin H visited Lola Towers at my invitation. This came about because the local history group have been uploading material from their book 'Leamington Spa: A History in 100 Buildings', published in 2018 but now out of print. I've been reading it a page at a time when I have a moment, and it's really very interesting. I was moved to contact them to offer them access to Lola Towers before I sell. 

It's quite possible that all of the buildings in all of the world have some sort of interesting story behind them - when and why they were built, who lived there. I wrote what I knew of the history of Lola Towers in 2017, and Cousin H became interested and did a bit more research, so when the secretary of the history group accepted my invitation to visit, I thought Cousin H might be interested. And also because it was an opportunity to hang out with him.

He arrived the day before, and we went to a play in Stratford at the Swan Theatre which was slightly disappointing but OK, and back in Leamington I took him over to the Royal Pump Rooms to see the display of the history of the town before coming home ready to welcome the history group. But nobody turned up, and when I contacted them it seemed they had visited but somehow had got no answer. So that was a shame, but we've set another date and I hoping it comes to something next time.

On the GRUHI front I've had some success. Photographing and listing stuff is getting a bit easier, and I have a couple more items of value, and then it will be a relief to just take what's left to the tip or the charity shops. UJ bought my bicycle, and I took all sorts of bits and pieces from the garage to a gardening event in the hope that someone would be interested. One person nabbed the strimmer string and another took some hosepipe; I also got rid of two buckets and a seed spreader to Nameless Man at the Library of Things. They are all Eco types who are thoroughly organic, and general horror was expressed at the chemicals I had - at least one is now banned but they told me how to dispose of it all at the local recycling centre, where I am now a very regular visitor.

The Saga of the Water continued with another visit from Severn Trent. This time it was a young woman, who apologised for her colleagues while actually doing the job I'd asked for. She confirmed there was a leak on my side of the water meter - about 1 litre an hour, which sounded like a lot until she told me the story of her previous job which was at a church where water was being lost at the rate of 600 litres an hour. She used a delightful tool to listen to the pipes, which could not have been less technical and comprised an earpiece on a stick. When I said that it might be a good idea to close the stop tap and check again, she expressed some surprise that this hadn't been done on either of the previous visits.

So in conclusion it seems that I have two problems. One is at the front where the water stain appeared, but there are no pipes leaking there and it is very probably water rising from the cellar brickwork below due to all the rain, and the age of the house meaning that there is no proper damp proof course on that wall. So I can hope for drier and warmer weather, while drying out the wall with a heater and dehumidifier and then touching up the paint. The other problem is within the house - maybe a ballcock or seal on a cistern is letting water drip through, because there are no dripping taps or evidence of water leaking (except as mentioned at the front where there aren't any pipes). For this I can engage an ordinary plumber to investigate.