It's 21.50, according to my trusty computer; daughter Hannah is writing a dissertation about grapheme to phoneme access, or some such, for her Linguistics degree dissertation; 'Toy Story 3' has been and gone, and achieved an excellent rating on the popularity front, accompanied by tonight's sweet ration of Skittles; the lights are out, and Mrs C is emptying the dishwasher, after what has been her final day as president of the new entrants' testing. Sad, really, to think that she and I will never know the LMs that were here today, or their parents: doubly sad, because all the parents that I met before lunch seemed delightful. Ah well, there we are, and I'm not going to go all soppy on you because many different opportunities for life post-SF are now coming into focus - but more about that when the final image is ready. I promise.

A great sporting day v Papplewick today: fantastic results across the board, and a v happy HM, which is always good news. As pre-match changing room duty master, I did tell the P'wick boys to 'play well, but not that well, of course', and clearly they decided that they should respect the wishes of one of their establishment's former preceptors! (Although I think they took it a bit too seriously, to judge from some of the results ..... ) Sobering to think that I started there in 1973, as a newly-qualified and very naive beak!

It was good to see a few of you, dear readers, earlier: I was on duty with my former tutee, Mr Edwards, so not able to spend as much time chatting as I might have liked, but that's the way it goes. Or, as Miles Kington, king of Franglais, would have said, 'C'est le chemin il va'. His best ever, I thought, was his translation of 'coup de grace' as lawnmower! (I stayed in his London flat once, when I was an A level music student, because my director of music had been a contemporary of his at Oxford. I was introduced to him, and he enquired, kindly, as to where I lived. 'Warwickshire', I replied, adolescently. 'That's a lovely place', he said. I made as if to respond, but nothing came out. 'Well? Isn't it?' he asked. I made a sort of quasi-mumblous-grunt and we 'moved on'. I think I redeemed myself a little - just - over dinner, in a fabulous Chinese restaurant, the name of which I have now forgotten.)

I'm waffling now. It happens when you get older, you know.

Goodnight.