Yesterday, my plans were simple: go to town, shop and work on the problem chapter in BTP, go home, meet Law at the cinema to see 'A Series of Unfortunate Events', home again and work.

I was doing so well. I had bought the new camera (Nikon coolpix 4100) and was about to go drink keemun when I ran into the Beloved Ex in the High Street. He and family are down for the festive season. So naturally the two of us went to the pub and I braved showing him the problem chapter. He's sharp and incisive about writing, as you might expect from an Oxford PhD in literature, so I am always wary of revealing my work to him. As he liked it, and saw in my style the things I've been trying to achieve, I was all set up to work. Except by then I had to go straight to the cinema, and after the film I was too tired to work when I got home (two pints at lunchtime do not make for late nights).

This morning I thought I'd test the new camera and its connection to the PC. Uninstall this, install that, plug in the other. At which point coms to the camera failed and my mail program refused to run. Three hours later, including leaving a new install downloading whilst I went out to by essentials like milk, I had both the camera and the mail program back. I still need to fix my AV software, but hurrah! So now I need to implement the changes suggested for the problem chapter...

except I am also meant to be going to play mahjong...