The Emperor Adrian came to visit yesterday, bearing all sorts of gifts – mortar board, plastering trowels – oooh, how exciting! The emperor’s kitchen staff is away in England at the moment, so the poor emperor has to fend for himself, (no violins, please; he’s more than capable) but he doesn’t bother, preferring to use the time to lose a bit of weight, so he says.

So in exchange for lunch, he helped us to fill joints in plasterboards and between the three of us, we got most of the walls done. Just the ceilings to do now.

Kieran doesn’t like the fiddly tasks, preferring to apply himself to really manly jobs, like driving the digger, using the chain saw or erecting scaffolding. So he went to Alice’s yesterday and when she went to Bordeaux today, he’d arranged to go to Adrian’s; but at 3o’clock Adrian phoned to ask if we knew where he was, he wasn’t answering his phone or emails. We tried too, but with no success, eventually resorting to emailing Alice, who was also unable to make contact and obviously worried. She sent her parents round to the house to look for him and there he was – still asleep at 5pm!!! He won’t live this one down in a hurry!