I was working from home today, ostensibly on a task I'd actually mostly done at the weekend (a leaflet design for which we don't have the software at work). So in between checking work communications I hopped between lots of different home jobs:

I dumped front garden rubbish in the bin and put the soil that was left into an old chimney pot I moved from the back garden. Then I used the chimney pots to give root-room to the pot-bound sweet peas that I'd planted out weeks ago from some tiny punnets my neighbour gave me.

I searched all my blip tags for 'review' because last week I saw an ad from an Oxford Whats On publication asking people who wanted to be reviewers to submit some writing. I practised speed-reviewing by writing my Regina Spektor review on the bus home last night and decided I could do it. I just had to assemble some reviews to prove to them I can write.

I got on with scraping old paint off this window sill now that the window is in place. A badly painted and peeling but sticky black layer covers a thin green layer and it all has to come off before I can put something more protective onto the original stone. I'm motivated by the vastly improved brickwork below. Until recently all this brickwork was covered with ugly white plastic cladding and when it finally came off the bricks behind were, predictably, very badly damaged (extra). Over the last few days the builders have been repairing and pointing.

My application was finally ready at 10.30pm. I emailed it off. Now I wait to see whether I can pay for theatre and concert tickets in writing.