I had a decent sleep last night, although I still woke up early - yesterday I went out and bought a hot water bottle, so that did help, at least I had warm feet. I also had a baked potato from the place around the corner for dinner. I thought one of the hotel cats was going to walk all the way to the takeaway with me, but she only came halfway, and then sat and watched until I came back.

This morning the head waiter was there at breakfast, he greeted me like his long lost best friend, to the amazement of the three other people who were there. There are still very few people in the hotel, it's such a dead time of the year.

I also made progess with Toccata 1, I have done most of the right-hand border now and should finish that part tonight. Actually I think it will be much quicker to stitch than I had thought. I did measure it, and it is 15cm by 20cm. I'm going to order Toccata 3 as soon as it is released, I have seen the picture of it, and it reminds me in many ways of Partita, it seems to be pretty much the same threads as well - I don't think it will be as quick to stitch as Toccata 1, though. There are other new Drawn Thread designs, tempting.

I've also pre-ordered Just Nan's Queen of the Needle Sampler, to go with my QOTN sewing case, although this still needs to be made up. I have only a little stitching to do on the back of that, but I am not sure I brought it with me. It will be nice if there are other QOTN things released, I really like the designs and the colourway. Again there are other new just Nans on the way, which tempt me. I've got quite a few that I did years ago, but QOTN is the only recent Just Nan that I've done. I have a stack of the older leaflets with charms and beads that I bought in Melbourne when Lincraft got rid of all their real needlework stuff, and we are talking about 1999 or 2000.

Work is not specially active or interesting at present, only problems and queries, nothing really to get my teeth into. Sylvain did come up with a bright idea that I should alternate, and spend two weeks in Cyprus and two weeks in Paris on his project where Gil broke his wrist and is off until mid Feb. But I told him I didn't think I could handle that physically, it would mean weekend travelling and a lot of other hassles, and anyway the client here would go berserk, they think they have exclusive use of me. I'm not inclined to do favours at present, given the whole visa and insurance debacles. Leo swears to me that the new lawyer is doing something about my work permit, I certainly hope so, because I have seen no sign of this.

Mmm, what shall I do now? I have some testing to do, I guess I could make a list of what needs to be tested, and think about doing it. I don't think David has got anything more exciting to do either, but at least he and Alec get to go home tomorrow evening. I will be here all by myself on Friday.