The flat pack arrives:

Wood piled up in the sitting room:

We get started:

We carry on:

We add the roof beams:

Covered up for the rain:

Adding roof boards and insulation:

Having spent a few moments admiring my NZ spinach bed:

Liv’s chillies:

Mama’s grapes:

And my Hawaian lettuces:

I heard myself pontificating on how few marauding pigeons there were about the place these days. I surmised it must be due to the psychic reverberations through the ether after my having caught and killed several birds, slicing their breasts from their bodies while still warm in my frenzy, before frying them in butter.

At that moment, a faint fluttering to my left betrayed this fiend sitting on a single egg:

And then, incredibly, on my right, though more difficult to see, another of the same ilk keeping a couple of scrawny chicks warm:

Both are within easy reach … is this a test?

Mama and friend in the sea at Elmer.

As Kevin Keegan wondered, how long will it be before this guy’s hair is as white as his?

France captain Patrice Evra has already blamed the noise generated by the vuvuzelas, which has been likened to the drone of thousands of bees, for his side’s poor showing in their opening group game against Uruguay, which finished goalless.

He said: “We can’t sleep at night because of the vuvuzelas. People start playing them from 6am.”

It certainly didn’t affect England, though. They played as crappily, throughout, as they usually do, with wonderful displays of possession, most of which might as well have terminated in a back pass to the keeper – as they often did!