Monolith

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Autumn colours, the sun already waning at six in the evening, the edge to the breeze heralding the weeks of winter to come, and - what's this, centre-frame? - why, it's a bloody great piece of slate on a builder's trolley: the soon-to-be-new-lintel for our living-room fireplace, bricked up since the 1970s. All we need now is a couple of wet weather days so that our builder can divert away from the focus of fine weather outside work currently in progress.

As soon as the hearth is opened up, we can give the green light to the stove installers to come in and, well, install the stove: a modern, efficient, Scandinavian wood burner that will be a very welcome alternative to being 100% dependent on electricity for heating. All in all an expensive exercise, but a sound long-term investment all round. I look forward to it. I've deliberately decided to not seethe a word about today's parliamentary farrago: I'll leave that until tomorrow...

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