I discovered another really neat thing. Every Friday, students from the Royal College of Music perform a lunchtime concert at St. Mary Abbots Church, a 2-minute walk away. This week there was a pianist playing Chopin, a trio playing Beethoven, and a quintet playing Haydn and Danzi. I will have to plan my Fridays around that. It was a lovely setting for the music, even with the schoolchildren having recess at the adjacent St. Mary Abbots School. They also have lunchtime concerts on other weekdays at the College itself, which is probably a 15-minute walk. It's right by the Natural History and Science museums and the Victoria and Albert (which we will be visiting on Sunday).

I took it easy today. Other than the concert, the post office and the grocery store, I stayed home. I have to pick up the pace a little. I'm falling behind.

Things in the flat are starting to fall apart, through no apparent fault of ours. There are two Italian stovetop espresso coffee makers. I have been using the small one that makes one cup. When Cathy was here I used the larger one (after cleaning it out because of something gross growing inside it!). But I used it only the one time because the handle was so loose that it seemed like it could break off. There was no visible screw to tighten it. Before that, I used the microwave soon after we got here and then when Gord tried to use it a day or two later, you could hear the fan but it didn't warm the food no matter what level we set it at. Now tonight, I was putting something away in the fridge and I noticed that one of the glass shelves is cracked all the way through from front to back. We have done nothing that would cause that to happen, unless it was already cracked and it got worse by putting something on top of it. I'm worried because we gave the landlords a large deposit and I'd like to get it all back. (I could buy ten more rings with that money!) I'm out of practice with this renting thing. On close inspection, lots of things could break at any moment--some of the window treatments are old and worn, and each morning when I open the bedroom curtains, that are lined and quite heavy, I feel like the drawstring (or whatever it's called) could snap right off, even though I try to be very careful. We were given a 27-page inventory of every single item in here down to the light bulbs(!), but I haven't taken the time to check to make sure we started out with everything on the list. The landlords seem very nice, however, so I hope they won't blame us for every little thing. The list indicates that the microwave was bought in 1998, so it's had a good life I'd say. He wants us to see if we can get it repaired, but I doubt it will be worth it--you could buy one for a lot less money probably. Anyway, we're taking greater care with their things than we do with our own, so why this is happening I can't say. But maybe it's the ghost.....