The gas ran out while I was cooking last night.

We used to keep a spare bottle in the barn but haven’t bothered since we put the house up for sale and are thus doomed to occasional inconvenience.  It’s very occasional since a bottle lasts about two years of summer occupancy.

In this instance I was very little inconvenienced because I was able to complete my vegetable curry and rice in the microwave but the question arises as to whether or not to re-stock given that I have a week to go during which I expect to eat out definitely on four days and probably on a fifth and given that an English family looking for a holiday home spent well over an hour viewing the house yesterday afternoon.

I set out to give the grass a what I hoped would be a final cut on Thursday and I was inconvenienced there as well because the starter cord snapped on first pull.  This was not really a surprise since it has been frayed and bedraggled for a while but it was not handy.

My random collection of spanners didn’t look sufficient to even take the outer engine cover off so repairing it myself didn’t look to be feasible and I couldn’t see Mr. Brico doing the job in time for me to get a cut in before departure so I did the job with the strimmer.

It wasn’t quite as back-breaking as it is when the grass has had the entire season of mellow unoccupancy to get to knee height but it was still a pain and the result looks much like a self- administered haircut but it’s one more closing down task ticked off the list.

This morning I’ve been washing floors.