Philanthropic Porsche drivers and the great bank holiday dilemma

A bright spot amid the gloom of yesterday - walking through the city, Jules passed a Porsche Carrera carrying probably its first ever backseat passenger, an average-sized woman with her knees around her ears. Nice to know that the city traders were doing their bit to help get stranded people home.

Jules got home a bit after 8, having left work at 4.30. Credit Suisse put on buses, but the traffic was gridlocked, so after an hour or so he got off the bus and walked to the nearest DLR station and caught the DLR then the North London line to West Hampstead.

And then, to round off the evening nicely, we discovered that the oven had blown up. No power to it whatsoever. So the steamed pudding was off the menu and I had to go round the corner to Spicy Basil for a green chicken curry.

The electricians came this evening to fix it. Like the landlord, the builders and the furniture deliverers, they are Polish. You see adverts up in corner shops "Wanted: Polish Builder/Cleaner/Plumber". Is this just patriotism - Polish people wanting to support Polish tradespeople - or have we stumbled into a Polish mafia underworld? Maybe we have watched too many episodes of the Sopranos - just the other day Jules was saying it was a shame we didn't have an Uncle Tony to go and lean on the letting agents for us!

Starting to think about the August Bank Holiday mini break. Current thoughts are Naples (to visit Pompeii and Mt Vesuvius but stay in Sorrento as Naples is apparently not very nice), or Budapest or Reykjavik. Any thoughts on the above would be welcome.

I ordered some brochures on Iceland, Greenland etc - one called Midnight Sun and one called something like Winter Wonderland or, as Annie said, No Sun At All. They are fantastic and have great photos, e.g. one of a man in a woolly hat lying on a rock talking to an arctic fox. Since then I have been fantasising about an Icelandic holiday - possibly in winter to see the Northern Lights. You can stay in any number of ice hotels in Northern Scandinavia and go for sled rides complete with huskies. Jules has not shown a great deal of interest in the brochures, saying snappily: 'Yes, I've got the message: Iceland good, Lapland even better!'

For anyone interested in an Icelandic oddyssey, the brochures can be viewed at www.discover-the-world.co.uk. Unfortunately they don't send them out of the EU and I can't give mine up.

Getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to go to the Old Black Lion for the game. Go blacks go!