Tuesday

Up early - man coming to see about scaffolding the house at 9am, already dog walked and drinking coffee. Went to an art event last night, Warhol themed evening - and off to see 'Entertaining Mr Sloane' at the local independent art house cinema - shall be wearing a car coat, in the style of Harry Andrews.

Went to Rye yesterday - the capital of twee - had an appointment with one of these, at this place.

Also went to visit one of my mates on Pett Level - and the writer who is putting together his autobiography - which should be a very interesting read indeed... I went a couple of doors down to see his neighbours house which was partly gutted a couple of weeks ago by fire, the same day they collected the keys from the builders after a complete re-design and rebuild. They had come back from a party late that night and one of them had gone out for a cigarette on the patio, stubbed it out in a plant pot full of dry bark chips and then it had smouldered for a couple of hours - setting fire to the larch wood cladding. Because the house had been finished to a very high spec and the windows and doors were all top of the range - and because it's literally on the seafront - the house is hermaticaly sealed - so the whole exterior was alight before the alarms inside went off - the house is wrecked, everything is being stripped out - the fire went into the spaces between the floors and walls, destroying the wiring and everything - needs a gutting and a complete rebuild. I have made overtures towards the expensive oak floors that will sand down quite well. They were very lucky, fire brigade there in 7 mins - however, our local fire station is threatened with closure - so you can potentially add 10 mins to that in future.

In other news, picked up a fantastic Saville Row shirt in the Hospice Shop in Rye for £3 - they had a superb Burberry grey suit for a tenner - but it had been tailored for a man with freakishly short arms.

Still getting prickles from the loft insulation.