I hoovered the new place all yesterday. I wonder whether dysoned will ever come into use as the generic term for electronically assisted sweeping. I even dysoned the bare concrete floor only to find it sucking up the subfloor. After several hours the house was only a bungalow and now it’s much easier to keep the gutters clear.

I finally ventured into the loft to discover that everything I’d been told was true. The wasps were waggle-dancing around their beautiful pearlescent home. The two open water tanks were dressed in the retro Miss Havisham style cobwebs. The spotlights into the bathroom must have been wired by a fairground assistant with experience of the dodgems. Sparks flashed each time anyone passed underneath. But I have a plan to add a big wheel and a coconut shy.

We set out for the railway station this morning and saw that the sharp bend warning had been draped with a sheet saying Happy 30th Nathan You Chancer. I hope Nathan wasn’t distracted. There’s a tradition for shrouding street furniture in these parts, a bit like the church at Easter. The 20 mph speed limit signs erected in April and then moved ten feet inexplicably still have an official bin bag over them presumably because the new limit isn’t in force yet. The bin bags are essential in stopping sensitive folk feeling over-wrought about their speeding which might cause them stress, low esteem and loss of earnings.

That sort of official attention to detail is unnerving. In Reading, there was an array of recycling tanks in Homebase car park. One day, one of the tanks had a council warning taped to it saying that due to kerbside recycling the “facility” was going to be removed on a certain date. True to their word, it was lifted out on exactly that date. Pointless efficiency. An irrational fear of duplication. But it’s obvious. Now I can recycle plastic at home, I no longer need the council to duplicate the facility. It’s offensive to be provided with two ways of recycling the same thing! I’m going to picket any facility that has been duplicated wastefully. The library will be first. Schools next. Utterly pointless duplication.