It's still Summer Time, Katie . . .

Katie is the brilliant daughter, who interestingly signs off as my eldest daughter, living and working even further up North than my LSDA colleague. So this is for her in case I forget to phone, e-mail first. And for the rest of you too - but she gets to read it first, OK. I/we haven't moved. I'd tell you if we did, before we did. There was a sort of plan emerging and it was looking very much as though it was proceeding, although anyone reading between the lines would have appreciated that I wasn't entirely happy with the idea. However, the really annoying, awful and bad-mannered Egyptian man who had said that he was buying our house and would be moving all his stuff onto our drive if we didn't agree to complete a few days ago backed out of the deal at the last minute. He was going to try that trick of getting everybody in the chain committed to spending loads of money and then offering less in the hope that we'd have to accept the lower offer or lose money but I told him where to go as soon as I got wind of what he was up to.

This didn't make me particularly popular but there you go. So, having spent a week packing stuff up at the last minute and crawling into bed at some ridiculous hour exhausted, dusty and speaking to no-one except lawyers and agents, it's all off and the MK house is in boxes, beds dismantled, loft empty and everyone a bit down in the dumps.

Thank heavens for The Village, I say, but I have to say it quietly to myself . Anyway, yes, I'm looking for somewhere suitable to put everyone and possibly myself but no, I'm not moving and I will tell you when there's something definite.

The rest of you, including my eldest son who was last heard of in Brighton and owes me a birthday card and a finance company quite a bit on a Hymer camper van, will find out shortly afterwards. That's if I don't run out of money in the meantime which was another reason for moving.