Esther is distressed. A cat must, at all times, occupy the highest point in the room. Up until now this has been conveniently situated to take advantage of the window (to keep an eye on the world) and the heater (to stay warm, of course). But it has been usurped by the new bookshelves. What's a girl to do? At present she has given up entirely and gone elsewhere to think it over!!

I headed down early and found Barb's place entirely deserted - apparently she took my advice and has moved into her mother's house so she is not obliged to keep the house she is living in immaculate while also caring for a second house and working full time. I had come to understand the bookshelves were going to be left in the carport but they were not there. So I let myself in and looked around all over the upstairs area and found nothing resembling bookshelves, and downstairs there was just the one set. Fortunately these were the right ones (as we established by text message this afternoon) as they are the ones I loaded into the ute and took away. She now tells me there may be another set under the house, so I am living in hope, having all but filled these with the books i was given by my other friend that is moving. The Ngaio Marshs all but fill the top shelf, the sundry novels by mixed autors more than fill the middle one, and the PD James's half fill the bottom one. As I have a spare key to her house I have left it hidden in a place for her to find (if she follows my instructions) so that the new owners, when the put in an appearance, will not find strange women wandering in and using their loos when down from the country.

I managed to achieve all of my errands this time which made a nice change, and had the additional luck of receiving the parcel of stuff that I had ordered on line. I will take the relevant bits into sewing tomorrow for Jean.

It is  a howling gale at present so bits of the house are shuddering and knocking against each other with gay abandon. I shall ignore it all as I bury myself in Ngaio Marsh's autobiography and feed wood into the fire while eating the last of the curry.