Yesterday, I popped into town for a dental appointment and nearly came home with a composter. I was minding my own business, waiting to use the ATM, when I noticed activity around a pile of boxes behind a white van on the other side of the road. Now, when I used to live opposite the Waste Market in Dalston (East London), activity around the back of a white van meant something interestingly dodgy was going on. Not so here. On my way back from the dentist, I noticed the action was all still happening at the white van, and was about to politely ignore it (as was safest to do in Dalston) when I bumped into Jenine, who asked me if I wanted a free composter. It turns out that for those who are on the municipal grapevine, read the right Facebook pages, or generally have their ear to the ground more than I do, that there is a scheme afoot to give these things to households for recycling garden and other waste. (The South Aegean Solid Waste Management Agency (FoDSA) is running the initiative.) I wasn’t in a position to take them up on the offer right then and there, and to be frank, we’d never use one, so it would only go to, er, waste.

After that, my day suffered very few highlights, as usual. I think the most extreme thing I did yesterday afternoon was brushing my office carpet – and that’s not a fun job at this time of year. I spent the afternoon reading, and having hot flushes as the humidity was coming in waves; fine one minute, high the next, rinse and repeat, and not even the rumbles of distant thunder in the early evening could calm it down. (No rain, sadly.)

Anyway, I am nearing the end of the final draft before proofing of the 12th book in the third series, and that is my job for the weekend. So, plenty to look forward to, including, I hope, a few more of this kind of pre-dawn scene: