I’ve lived here for six years, but only met my over-the-road neighbour for the first time this evening. We didn’t have time to chat for long - he was busy reversing into my car at the time.

I bipped three times, but he didn’t slow down. Fortunately we both seem to have bumpers made of rubber, so beyond a bit of silver dust on my blue paint no damage was done. Anyhow, it gave us a chance to say hello. He looks a lot fatter in real life than he does through a window.

Beyond that, it’s been a fairly hum-drum day, really. I said I’d go to South Woodham to help Helen and Paul pick bathroom tiles, but when you’ve walked around the shop once and held every conceivable coloured tile up against each other the novelty soon wears off. Fortunately we were done by 11 (which says more about how early we started than how quickly we got it done) so pootled into Maldon for breakfast and a walk. I haven’t been there since the last mud race, so we wandered around the high street for a bit, then I came home to do my tax return.

Looks like I owe the tax man some money this time around. Or perhaps my calculations are a bit dodgy. I was using a particularly nasty piece of software to do it, so will pass it through an accountant before I send it off. I’m not convinced it’s come up with the right answer.

As an offshoot of spending most of the afternoon alternately looking for obscure invoices and receipts, and trying to find anything that would legitimately postpone sitting down and actually getting on with doing the job in hand, I now have a sparkly clean flat.

Which is nice.

1. Taxing work
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2. Taxing business
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3. Bye
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