I had written almost all of today’s diary entry when a wicked ghost in the machine erased every single word of it, leaving me with not a single sentence that could be recovered.

Not that it was exactly words of genius but it is still a complete nuisance because it has meant that I have had to start all over again at one o’ clock in the morning.

It is now very late indeed, and I am really busy driving a Saturday night taxi. I am writing this hastily in snatched moments in between driving up and down the hill and eating home made chocolate and peanut fudge. In consequence this may be rather short because I am quickly running out of writing time.

It hasn’t been a terribly exciting day to tell you about anyway. Before work it was mostly occupied with drinking coffee and rubbing my eyes, then making picnic and dancing around the kitchen to the chirpy melodies of the Sherman Brothers, who are responsible for one of my all-time favourite song lyrics, which features the inspired rhyme:  “Everybody’s toes get tappier, everybody’s feeling happier.”

Number Two Daughter helped for a while, but eventually It’s A Small World got the better of her and she said that she preferred her afternoon without cheery music and buzzed off upstairs where she couldn’t hear it.

In fact you might be interested to know that somebody once sued Disneyland over this. There is nothing unusual about this, Disneyland gets sued roughly once every week. This particular chap got stuck on the It’s A Small World ride when it broke down and was trapped there for over an hour. He alleged that the endlessly repeated jolly tune had caused him permanent brain trauma.

When Mark came in from cleaning the taxis he said that he sympathised with him, but I don’t. I like the song and know all of the verses, and sang them all whilst slicing up melon and strawberries for our picnic.

We went off to sit on the taxi rank after that, which is always a rather nice way to spend a sunny afternoon. Mark read his book and I wrote to you, until later on in the evening we started to get busy and somehow when I came back to the taxi rank and switched on my computer, there was a long blank space where my diary ought to have been.

I am completely aware that the problem is not the responsibility of the computer, but of the idiot in charge of operating it. I am sorry not to have managed to reproduce it in full, even this is a bit disjointed because it has been squeezed in between picking up loud happy intoxicated people.

The nightclub is about to close and I am at the front of the taxi queue and have got to leave you on that note.

I took the picture when I popped back home to empty the dogs this evening, it is the Library Gardens. The bushes are glorious at the moment, the lovely fragrant blossoms falling all around me as I was walking, one of those moments where the beauty and the slow cooling of the evening made my heart ache with the wonderfulness of it.

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