More concessions, more Courtauld

At Martyn's suggestion, we went to Eltham Palace on Sunday. Wow! (an interjection I'm not greatly given to using.) I was last there in the late 70s for a nice little concert in the Great Hall thereof, introduced by the miraculously plain and utterly charming Dame Flora Robson. I wasn't aware then of the extraordinary house next door, built by Stephen and Virginia Courtauld. The house, seen from outside, is very handsome, though it was raining so hard that we didn't hang around to admire it. The interior is fabulous, if your tastes run to the Art Deco, as ours do. The only other place I have seen for myself such superb ocean-liner interiors was on Court N°3 at Bow Street, now no longer operating as such. I signed us up for English Heritage membership as we left, and by signing Martyn up with me, got him in at the concessionary membership rate. Does this make him an honorary old geezer?

A less attractive aspect of passing 60 is that one is invited to take part in the bowel cancer screening exercise. The process is one that repels squeamish blokes like me, but I finally steeled myself to the task earlier this month, and have been rewarded with a normal result.

Collected Egg2 from the repairers this morning. When I arrived, I found the newly repaired door slightly damaged. I then stumped off to do the shopping, snarling that I'd be back in between half an hour and an hour. They seem to have touched it in capably, and applied and cured the clear coat. According to Mr Painter, the door had been rehung wrongly, so that it conflicted with the trailing edge of the front door, and he was as disappointed as I was to see his work thus undone. It looks as if they have done a decent job, after final adjustments, but it did mean that I've effectively lost a few hours of my precious retirement. But we appear to have got a new tyre out of the process - I'd have been happier still if the tyre they replaced had been approaching my cranial condition.

Domestic violence court yesterday. Memo to colleagues: please use your sentencing guidelines when you ask for a pre-sentence report. It is frustrating to have to give a drunken wife-beater 50 hours' unpaid work because of your PSR instructions when the custody threshold has clearly been crossed. Snarl. SNARL!!