And here we are again. Time really does go very quickly, does it not? Only a few years ago - golly, it has been a long day! - I mean, of course, hours, I was promising to bid our new Follower from Poland a fond 'Good evening', and I bet there were some of you who thought I'd forget. Ha! Oh ye of little faith. A quick visit to Google Translate and I'm able, without let or hindrance, to do exactly that. So, my friend, 'Dobry wieczov' - with apologies for the missing accent over the o.

As for tonight, well, it's been a fairly quiet evening, following a very good debate entitled 'This house believes that a president would be more effective than a monarch', wherein many fine speeches were made, both by the official speakers and those who chose to speak from the floor. Not sure what, as Dr Dean described him, 'the one person who's had more experience of speaking from within a chamber than the rest of us' made of it, but to judge from the occasional cry of 'Excellent!' and the odd guffaw from behind me, it seemed to have gone down pretty well. (As he's a regular reader of these nightly offerings I have to be diplomatic, you see, otherwise my time might be up sooner rather than later.)

The good old shower deception tricks are in full swing again, though tonight I came across a development of the old ones, with the discovery of a flannel being wettened and pulled across the hair, face and upper torso. Nice try, but they do tend to forget that Mrs C and I have been at this game since 1994, so we've seen almost all of it before. One step ahead ...... !

Two of our residents appeared on our stairs, which happen, for reasons historical, to be in the kitchen, and stood on same, asking of me whether I might avail them of their rightful sweet rations. They looked for all the world like characters from 'The Sound of Music', but I elected to forego the utter delight that would no doubt have been provided if they chosen to sing for their sweets.

That'll do for tonight. I'll see some of you tomorrow. But probably not those of you from far-flung parts of the blogosphere.

Wherever you are, I hope all is well.

Goodnight.