I was being facetious when I conflated the arrival of summer time with the arrival of summer itself but the central heating system has taken me at my word and stopped. With snow forecast over the next few days this is not good news.

Applying my limited understanding of these things and consulting the manual I increased the water pressure, which had certainly fallen below the recommended level, and bled all the radiators but to no avail.

I'll give it twenty-four hours to come to its senses then I'll call out the experts.

I called for expert help recently by emailing a BT support service with a query. The reply was from one Garry Watson who had clearly not devoted much time to reading my question. The advice was to ring a helpline.

A few days later I had worked the thing out for myself and in a spirit of goodwill towards men I sent an email saying "I don't need your help any more thanks". I got a reply from this same Garry Watson saying "We understand you are having problems with BT Vision. If this persists please ring ......".

Calling a computer Hal led to all sorts of trouble. Calling one Garry Watson seems at least to do no harm even if it does no good.

I called my central heating system all sorts of names this morning but I shall just call it Garry Watson in future.

It's astonishing how many things needed to be moved on an hour today in celebration of the arrival of summer:

Bedroom clock
Wristwatch
Mobile phone
Central heating
Lounge clock
Telephone
Kitchen clock
Oven
Microwave
Car
Camera

These ones sorted themselves out automatically:

Laptop
Set-top box
Kitchen radio
Hi-fi radio
Bedroom radio
Mondo wi-fi radio

I have watched the bids mounting on the pasta machines that I picked out on Ebay.

If you buy one of these in the shops you can pay up to forty quid or so but you can get the same model brand new on Amazon for £33 including postage. So it strikes me as strange, not to say perverse that anyone should pay £35 for a second-hand one on Ebay. But that's what two of those machines went for. The others fetched a slightly more reasonable £27 and £25 but I'd be looking for a better discount on the new price than that.

My good spirits on returning this evening from the RSA where I had not only enjoyed the art and a glass of wine but bumped into some old friends were dissipated on discovering that the lift lunatic is back at work.

The severe talking to he got from the fire brigade at New Year (for I am sure it is the same jerk) must have worn off. What to do?

The items I put up for sale on Ebay attracted exactly one bid each. No cut throat competition there then.

When I went to post the ink cartridges the cost was about 40p more than when I'd taken the package in to price it (the added weight of the address?) and I forgot to include the padded envelope in my p&p charge, so what with that and Ebay's cut I suspect it cost me more to sell them than to throw them away.

I saw a couple of one-act plays at the weekend that were entries to the English equivalent of the SCDA festival. They were quite good but what impressed me most was that they were performed in a little theatre (100 odd seats and a bar) that belonged to the amateur group doing the shows. Oh that the Grads had had that sort of vision rather than hanging onto the coat-tails of the university for the last fifty-six years.

I also saw a professional production in Harrogate's Victorian theatre where the ornate decoration has been delightfully restored and the entire building refreshed. The show was Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends. It's one of his superb dark comedies and I enjoyed it very much. I played in it once myself but could remember only that my character got a jug of cream poured over his head and that he had to smoke a cigar so the play unrolled before me like something entirely new.

Had the production been in Scotland the actor could not have had a cigar but English legislation allows smoking on stage. A notice in the foyer warned us that "..... this play contains instances of profanity and that due to artistic integrity there will be smoking on-stage." At least we can still enjoy the profanity up here.

I was staying with friends I had made in Italy and Ron was extolling the joys of making your own pasta having recently bought a machine in a deli's closing down sale. I don't know about the joy of making it but I enjoyed watching Brunella do it many years ago and I certainly enjoyed the fruits of her labour.

So I must try it and am now on Ebay again in the more familiar role of buyer keeping an eye on four pasta machines, ready to strike at the last minute and reel in a bargain.

The helium balloons used in the show have been decorating my lounge ever since and are now showing signs of deflation. Particularly the red one which initially flew as high as the other.

I'm interested to see how long it takes for the pair of them to bite the dust.

I switched on my computer with some excitement this morning eager to see how the bidding was going on the items I put up for sale on Ebay yesterday. The results so far are at least better than on the one and only previous occasion on which I tried to sell something on Ebay. Then my ad was found to be in contravention of the railways act and was removed. This time the ads are still there but no-one has bid.

So if you want a barely used beard trimmer or some printer ink the way is clear.