The big IKEA cabinet has left the building! Along with a straight chair (pleasing, but also unnecessary) and a nice, clean, step-on garbage container, also excess to requirements. I am more than pleased. The basement TV-and-reading room has breathing space for the first time since the beginning of the kitchen renovation. Now, all it needs is a paint job, but that will damned well have to wait for another infusion of money.

Two guys from the church arrived with a flat-bed trailer and within about 15 minutes the job was done without so much as a chip out of the fresh paint in the front hall.

Floating on a wave of accomplishment, we cleaned a winter's worth of debris off the deck and the front porch. Stratford is a house-proud town, and we don't want the neighbours to think we're slobs.

The church variety sale -- destination of the above-mentioned cabinet and many large boxes of doohickeys -- starts tomorrow. Himself and I have been conscripted to guard the doors and the booths with the most-thieved items; apparently this major fund-raiser attracts le tout Stratford, including some of our lighter-fingered fellow citizens. Himself asked me what I would do if I caught a shoplifter; I replied that I would embarrass the hell out of her. The parish verger, our boss for this gig, opined that fear of public humiliation is by far the most effective security method available to us.