Wireless rocks. You can look things up while you’re watching the telly, plan your weekend and email your friends from bed or …errr… get distracted by it when you’re trying to write your novel.

Oh, I did try. Honestly I did. I lit a lotus stick, sat down in the sun with a huge mug of tea and opened a new document. An hour and 1,000 words later, having spent much of that time looking up fairly unimportant facts I was gagging for an excuse to break and so when Paul called and suggested a trip to the dump to help him unload the car I readily agreed.

There was an ulterior motive, of course: the sun was still shining and they’d been promising on the radio that this was the best weekend for seeing the autumn trees, so I threw the camera in the back and we set off north after the tip to see what we could find.

The answer was… green. Everywhere. Grass, trees, leaves. Not a spot of autumn in the whole of Essex. That’s what comes of listening to syndicated radio programmes that come from whoever knows where, where autumn is clearly already in full flow. Perhaps it’s happening here next weekend - when we’re away in Paris. Or maybe even the weekend after that.

So we didn’t stop the car at all. We drove an hour then stopped in at a shop to buy cake that we ate back at mine while we watched the second episode of The Prisoner. That show remains an enigma. It clearly cost a lot to produce - you can tell that must from the sets and costumes - but beyond reinforcing what we already knew (that you can’t escape from the village and that number 6’s bosses were in on his imprisonment) it was an hour that did nothing to advance the rather strange storyline.

Perhaps that’s the point. If it’s an alegory of working life then the repetitive, circuitous nature of the plot is probably more or less spot on.

Yesterday. Hmmm… it feels a long time ago. Food shopping first thing, then around to see mum to fix her PC, which is turning into a bit of a dithering worrier, refusing to talk to the printer, or the other machine on the network. In true Windows style, though, a reboot might occasionally fix everything, only for it to go wrong again next time you restart.

Fiddled on with that until lunchtime, the cat popping in its nose now and then to see if it could help, then zizzed home to do pretty much the same with my own machines until walking to Springfield just gone seven for dinner with Trevor, Jon, Paul, Graham and Roger.

Summer is certainly over. You could feel it in the air. It was the hard cold of autumn, not the gently breezy coolness of summertime. As we ate, it poured, and we could hear it bouncing off the roof of the conservatory tacked on to the back of the house, but by the time we’d done, drank coffee and looked at the seven of my 755 holiday pictures to actually make it to paper, it had stopped.

The wind had picked up again, and Jon explained that we should be thankful for that at least. It might be unpleasant to walk in, especially if it is blowing into your face, but it wouldn’t let the coldest of the air sink down and settle, and so we should be walmer on our journey.

I believed him. He’s rarely wrong about the weather, but the way I felt by the time I crawled, shivering, into bed, I couldn’t help wondering what would have been worse - freezing temperatures or a strong cold breeze.

1. Proofs
   It turns out the Police tape was because someone had been shot at the Astoria. I got into work and heard all about how there...
   
   
2. Job done
   Summer went by so quickly I barely noticed it passing. I'm determined not to let autumn do the same. Before we know it, it'll be...
   
   
3. I’m sorry, am I late?
   Not a bad day in all, but I didn't make it to the gym this morning. Like a lot of people in the office I...