The day today

The third time I chased the friendly but absent painter he answered the phone, clapped his hand ot his forehead and admittted he was so busy organising a music festival he clean forgot to put us in the diary and he had a very good chap he could send today. And there he is, scraping the wood down.

My D&D character died after nearly four years playing, crawling into danger to give succour to another party member (isn't that 'sucker'?); the new character I rolled up last night should be fun as he has a huge two-handed sword and a chip on his shoulder about farming. I also got an unheard of 10 bonus XP for spotting how the monster we spent THE WHOLE SESSION on works, and this time I have all my hit bonuses written down from the start... 

The auctioneer's carriers phoned and we'll go back to mum's house on Monday to supervise a lot of things going off to be sold, leaving only what needs to go in the skip. American sister asked if there was any silverware to have as a memento and I found some nice silver spoons; Simon dug out the silver cleaning plate and did an excellent job of getting the tarnish off. Must have done it wrong last time as this time it did a great job on the silver teapot mum gave me. It says household soda and I'm using bicarb, but I wonder about trying it with caustic? Definitely not with caustic, I shall try some of my silver jewellry on it. A butler sink would be ideal for this - deep and non metallic.

There's a vanishingly small possibility we could buy the downstairs flat to rent; my money man is doing sums and says it would work but not exactly how much a month it would cost. I'd like the control over the neighbours (along with the investment potential), but it's probably borderline on whether we can do it.

Tonight I am moderating a panel on women, technology and breaking down barriers at the second anniversary Girl Geek Dinner; this is a subject I have been paid to rant about, the other panellists sound really interesting and I have lots of ideas so naturally I'm starting to feel nervous. I think I shall go install wireless music systems for a while to soothe myself.