Monday, 25th December.
Feliz Navidad!

In the middle of the night I spoke to my family, then trekked out to the phone booth to ring my maternal grandmother, who was well chuffed to hear from me. (just thought I'd slip that little phrase in there)

Spent the afternoon with the inimitable Andonnia and Erica, rels of a friend from Melbourne. Ate a lot of food, as usual.

Went home, fell asleep on the couch.

I woke up, dragged myself into my room, and just as I was falling asleep a house alarm went off.

It continued going off. To be precise, it was the alarm at 50 MIRABEL ROAD, FULHAM SW6. It went off for another 20 minutes, then I rang the Police. They said they couldn't do anything about it. Selfish me, I was less concerned about the place being burgled, I was more concerned about getting some sleep.

"Local borough polica have been notified, there's nothing they can do about it," said the voice on the other end of the 999 line, "but if you want you can complain to your local environmental protection agency."
"Yeah I'm sure I have the number handy," I drily remarked.

The alarm went silent just as I was finishing on the phone. Aah, at last I can sleep, I thought. Well only a few minutes later the bloody alarm cranked up again! It went for another 25 minutes, and then I finally drifted off to sleep. Bloody alarm.