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The trials and tribulations of it all. I was supposed to submit my annual update for an encyclopeadia entry at the end of June. Today I decided to make a start on it. I have been updating this particular entry every year for the past five years now, and I don't think I have ever managed to get it in on time. Since I don't usually get around to it until the middle of September, I suppose that I am actually ahead of schedule this year! It's a nice little earner - for all the work that's involved, that is - so I had better get it finished and submitted tomorrow. That was the plan anyway, until Dave and Terry turned up and started painting the windows of my study. It was not long before I felt a headache coming on with all the fumes, so I had to get out and into the fresh air. I did return to my desk later, once the smell had faded, and managed to get most of the material for the encyclopeadia entry together. I spent some time chatting to Dave and Terry while they were fixing the porch roof, and watched in awe as they leapt from the ladder to the steep porch roof without a care. The roof is approximately 30ft above ground level, yet it didn't seem to faze them at all... Sometimes I am extremely envious of people who have no fear of heights. Speaking of which, Dave sold me a set of ladders - so I suppose I will be having to paint things that are quite high up - despite suffering from vertigo. This reminds me of when I was an apprentice telephone engineer back in the early-1980s. We were sent on a training course to the Post Office training centre at an old airbase in Edinburgh's Muirfield district (a rough area then). On this course we were being shown how to tie a ladder to a telegraph pole and taught to trust our safety belts. There was a line of unsupported telegraph poles outside the main hanger. We were each given a ladder, a reel of dropwire, a dropwire clip, toolbelt and safety belt, and told to put the ladder up, secure it to the pole at the bottom, climb up, secure the ladder at the top, put our safety belt around the pole and clip it on, attach the dropwire then lean back on the pole steps and raise our arms above our heads. I got up the ladder, tied off the ladder, put on my safety belt, then wrapped my arms around the pole and froze. They had to get a cherry-picker to get me down! Talking about courses... today my mate Gavin starts his photography course at college. I would just like to wish him all the best as he takes this step towards his chosen career as a professional photographer.

These houses are occupied now, and this road leads to my new driveway