I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that fruit flies have now found their way to my attic flat. As well as this lot of fruit leather (occupying over a third of the horizontal space in my tiny kitchen), there've been masses of apple cores slowly decomposing in my compost bucket. Which I cycled to my old house today - I was right that no-one would nick it from my bike basket while I nipped into the supermarket en route.

The portaloo has now arrived in the front garden so this morning the neighbour with whom I'm building cut a length of carpet out of her daughter's bedroom to lay behind it so that we can safely store a bath and basin that will eventually go back into the house.

The back of their house has now come down too (extra), and three very neat trial pits have been dug to see what my house foundations are like. I've looked into the trial pits but understand them less than I do compost.

The neighbours on the other side lent me their garden hose again this evening and I climbed over the garden wall to try to revive the wilting plants. I cut two lettuces for the neighbours as a thank you then they gave me a bag of plums as a thank you. I am very lucky with my neighbours.

I took a break tonight and went to a gig at the most clumsily named festival in the world: The Oxford Festival Fringe Preview Comedy Festival, where comedians try out their shows before taking them to next month's Edinburgh Fringe. An hour in Glenn Moore's company was an excellent distraction from the fruit flies. Actually, it was better than that.