'twas shoe-cleaning night in Newton tonight, and, consequentially, there was a rather fine line of 24 pairs of shoes lining the downstairs corridor! First prize went to one of our Russian residents (and as there's only one of those it's not difficult to work out who that was: I can't tell you, though, as I have a policy of not mentioning any names in this corner of cyberspace.) We then decided that we'd award lesser edible prizes to six runners-up, and all of the winners were worthy, we felt.

Greetings, by the way, to our new Follower, currently (but not permanently) in Hong Kong! That means, my people, that there are now blogloggers in the UK, Cyprus, the Cayman Islands, USA, France, Uganda, Hong Kong, Japan, the Netherlands, Brazil, Russia, Malta and Romania! Good whatever it is wherever you are, and thank you for tuning in ... ! Amazing things, these blog stats, do you know I even have a map of the world with the countries where NFN is read shaded in green? Remarkable.

You might be entertained (a little) by a comment that was made to Mrs C last night, after the service, in which, as you know, I praught.

'Oh, my, it must be so interesting, living with a husband like yours' !!!

Ever dutiful and loyal, my dearest - indeed my only - wife nodded in agreement. Yes, indeed it must, especially when it comes to logistics and organisation, those great skills that I possess in minus figures.

Well, that's it for another night: I'm 59 tomorrow, so I need to ensure that I'm prepared for another milestone in the inexorable journey towards eternity .....

Goodnight