Have started swimming again. Went yesterday and today. Amazing how a stupid flu stopped me swimming for a month, and what unspeakable physical degeneration can happen in this time. Waddled about like a sumo wrestler. Ever since I had the flu I have been feeling run down and somewhat depressed, so swimming again sends a good signal to myself.

Monday very groundhog day. No progress on house. Work marginally less vile, leaving now in darkness as the clocks have gone back.

Dealing with an aberrant stray threat from the tax office demanding money in error, which my lovely accountant says I will not have to pay. I will have to move out of my current flat in two weeks, so it seems that I will have to put everything into storage and rely on friends and relatives for a roof over my head. In moments of abject gloom I can see this dragging on past Christmas.

Watched a wonderful dvd yesterday of the film Cinema Paradiso. Top film. Was invited round to Michel and Matty's place and ate roast pork with the boys, Eva and Maxine. Had met Matty in the North Star an hour or so before where Matt had bumped into an Italian student who lives above him. She had two student friends. They seemed to me like such sulky children. I wonder if Simon and me were like that 25 years ago. Pub was nice, with halloween lights suspended from helium balloons among other decorations, and loudly playing seventies soul and disco which took me back way before these students were ghoulish gleams in their parent's eyes.