• We’re still in Italy.

  • My toe hurts much less now. I don’t think I’ll try to run yet but it’s clearly improving.

  • It’s still very hot. Like The Tiger Who Came to Tea I have drunk all the water in the tap. The temperature is quite nice (25°C) first thing in the morning, though. It reminds me of cycling to work in London early on summer mornings.

  • In Italy bottled beer is sold in packs of 3. “Pick up a 3-pack” does not sound right at all, unless it’s 1990 and you’re talking about blank VHS tapes.

  • I built some IKEA BESTÅ furniture for my in-laws. It was the fiddliest IKEA furniture I have built because a) some of the bits are referred to in one part’s manual but come from a another part’s box (e.g. the shelf supports that come in the shelf box are replaced by odd-looking bits of metal from another box, but you don’t find that out until you get to the last page of the other box’s manual and you’ve already used the wrong bits once), b) the heavy glass doors cause the carcasses to go all parallelogram-shaped unless you fix them to the wall, c) fixing things to the wall is a pain. Anyway, it’s all done now and everyone is happy with it.

  • Our two year old is trying to get to grips with all the pronouns and other words that refer to her. She says “carry you” when she wants me to carry her (because I say “do you want me to carry you?”) and “my need it” when she wants something. It’s adorable.