Email from the investment broker, who apparently works on the weekend: Edmund's savings will be transferred to my account by next Wednesday, with no tax penalty.

Phew. But it took long enough.

Tony the carpenter was poking at the dubious wall in my middle bathroom yesterday. It's good to know that I can afford to pay him whatever it will cost to rip that sucker out and install something modern and mould-proof.

Kathleen my cleaner friend is giving the house a farewell scrub today. She is in the midst of packing up shelves of sheet music, including dozens of orchestral scores, so I was able to give her a useful going-away present: fifteen brand-new, never used file boxes. The two-cubic-foot boxes supplied by the moving company are way too big for books and sheet music; I can barely shove a full one across the floor, let alone carry it upstairs. Kathleen is no stronger than I am, so file boxes are her preferred "moving solution" (yuck).

That's a significant declutter for me.