There are definite advantages to moving house. Out of the blue, one of my neighbours has just started learning the saxophone. I've been sitting here for the past hour and a half, listening to 'Summertime' being played over and over again at a pace so slow it could make a glacier jealous. Frankly I'm praying for autumn.

But I'm not sure our new neighbours will be much better...


When Lisa, Amelie and I popped up to the new flat last night to bounce around on the carpet, we found the neighbouring road closed, and the whole area crawling with police and fire crews. For a moment I thought the bloke from Carpetright had dropped a fag on his way out, but as it transpires, we're simply moving in next door to an arsonist. I expect the moment he's released from police custody, he'll be inviting us round for a barbecue.

The new carpet's been laid!


Carpetright have lived up to their name and we're all jumping for joy...


Although once we've moved in, there'll be no shoes allowed past the front door.

The trouble with simultaneously moving house, working full-time and wrangling a mischievous toddler in a heatwave, is that it doesn't leave much time for blogging. And when you do finally sit down, you're too knackered to write anything. Frankly this keyboard makes an attractive pillow right now.

But the good news is that our new dining table arrived today, and despite being twenty miles away in Haywards Heath at the time, I've miraculously captured the moment on film...


I managed to stop them before they unloaded the coffin. But as you can see, Lisa and Amelie were pretty excited about the table. It fits in perfectly in its new home - right outside the front door.

Anyhoo, as it happens, my Dad was there to take delivery of the dining table and four chairs this afternoon. And I'm glad he was, because by the time he'd dismantled it to get it down the hallway, he'd successfully revealed the manufacturer's mark underneath the table top. It turns out that I've unwittingly bought a piece of Nathan Furniture. I can recognise British-made quality a mile off. Even in a charity shop.

But as if that wasn't enough to confirm that I chose the right table, have a look at this link from the Nathan Furniture website...

CLICK HERE

How spooky is that? It's got her name written all over it. Or it will have soon. In crayon.

Despite the album cover to the contrary, pink is well and truly dead. Having stood in the hallway of our new flat on Wednesday evening, and then spent a day considering the pros and cons of having our walls decorated in a shade of violet rarely seen outside Cadillac showrooms and panther enclosures, we came to the conclusion on Friday morning that living with a hallway the colour of Pepto-Bismol was likely to make us sick.

So following a brief telephone consultation with the decorators, my Dad agreed to re-do it. Having worked all day Friday on his pink cover version, the hall of our new flat is now bathed in Amethyst Showers. Which is the same colour as the living room. So at least we knew what it would look like.

In return for wasting my Dad's time, I agreed to paint all the skirting boards and door frames myself. So that's where I've been all weekend - on my hands and knees, and up a ladder, with a tin of white gloss. I did have a packet of mini rolls to help me through it, but sadly they were just spares for my tiny paint roller. The word 'sponge' was misleading.

Anyway, the hallway's not quite finished, but after one-and-a-half days work, I think I've done enough to look whiter than white. Frankly I don't think this paint's ever coming off my hands.

I had an e-mail from Amazon today to tell me that the book on the left is being published next Friday, and that if I pre-order it now, I can get 5% off. It's a new diabetic retinopathy textbook by Gloria Wu. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Wu who?". Well, you are if you're Homer Simpson.

As it turns out, she's an American ophthalmologist. I've looked up her website, and she refers to herself as Dr Wu. So she's obviously battling not only eye disease, but Daleks and Cybermen. Anyway, my exclusive 5% discount means that I can get the book on the day of publication for the bargain price of just £89.30. Yes, £89.30. Frankly for that kind of money, I'd want Gloria to come round and read it to me herself. I think I'll wait for the movie adaptation and get it on DVD.

I may not be keen to woo Gloria, but as it happens, I have been making a few other purchases. As certain people spotted in yesterday's video, I've just become a Dell boy by trotting off to PC World for a new monitor. It's state of the art technology, with 24 inches of widescreen, high definition, crystal clear loveliness. Lisa says Farmville has never looked so good.

But that's not all. I've been back to the Martlets Hospice Furniture Warehouse. And I've bought us a dining table. It's arriving on Monday. My Dad's charging his electric saw as we speak...

Our daughter's such a basket case...


Having spent most of the day wearing her Easter bonnet like a bra, she's now disguising herself as a pillar box.

Amelie's not the only one seeing red at the moment though. Lisa and I are too. Well, not so much red as shocking pink. This was the colour we chose for the hallway at our new flat...

It's called 'Violet Verona 5'. And it does nothing like it says on the tin. Dulux describe it as "a fresh violet" for "a soft, subtle, understated look". My Mum describes it as "strawberry milkshake". And having gone up to the flat last night to inspect my Dad's handiwork, I'm inclined to agree with the latter. It was like walking into a bubblegum factory. I've never been so in the pink. Frankly, on this evidence, the two gentlemen of Verona were gay.

Well, it's almost time. Eleven days ago, England met the USA at Rustenburg. Five days ago, England met Algeria in Cape Town. And tonight England meet France at the airport.

But before that, we've got an important match against Slovenia. All over the country, businesses are being urged to accept the inevitable and let their employees watch the game live. And frankly I'm livid about it. These fixtures were announced months ago, complete with kick-off times, making it quite obvious that England's third group match would start at 3pm. So I booked today off work in April.

Admittedly, people thought I was a bit stupid at the time. After all, if England had beaten the USA and Algeria, today's match would be meaningless, and I'd look a fool for using up my annual leave just to watch it. But I knew we'd be rubbish. We always are in the first two games. The chances of us beating a team of Africans with eleven multi-millionaires were always going to be slim. Unlike Wayne Rooney.

So if I can have the foresight to take time off work two months in advance for a crucial World Cup crunch match, so can everyone else. Anyone who hasn't, deserves to miss it. Frankly if I had my own business, I'd take the Somali approach.

I was working at Horsham Hospital today. It's next door to the fire station. Which is next door to the police station. If you call 999, every phone in the street rings. There's no better place to be set on fire by a mugger.

Today, however, the fire-fighters of Horsham were fanning the flames of publicity, and had this sign burning brightly on the kerb outside the station...


Never mind leaving your body to medical science, you can leave your car to West Sussex Fire Brigade. It's a hot idea which appeals to me. I've certainly owned a few vehicles that I'd like to see set alight at the roadside. At least, I'm presuming that's what they want to do with them. For all I know, they plan to use them as fire engines. Let's face it, anyone who can get my last Skoda across town in a hurry without being overcome by smoke, would be more than qualified to drive a Dennis.

Whilst sat in the local branch of Carpetright on Saturday afternoon, watching my vitalstatistics being tapped into a calculator, I asked the salesman how long it would be before they could fit our new carpet. He told me that the one we'd chosen would need to be ordered from their head office, which isn't open over the weekend, and that having received the order on Monday morning, it would take about a week to be delivered to Brighton, and a few days more before they could fit it. So he suggested we could be looking at a fortnight.

Of course, that was before I used the word 'Carpetright' on my blog yesterday. It's a bit like using the word 'bomb' on a mosque telephone. By 9:15am this morning they'd picked up the reference at their headquarters in Purfleet and were reading my blog. And at 3pm this afternoon I got a call to say my carpet had just been delivered to Brighton, and I can have it fitted tomorrow.

Of course it could just be coincidence that they managed to get the thing shipped from Essex to Sussex within six hours of reading this blog, and find a fitter who's free the next day. It might not be the case that they deliberately pulled out all the stops in the hope of getting a decent online review on a well-established site. But frankly I don't care. I'm quite happy to sell out if it means I get a better service. So I'd just like to say that Carpetright are consistently great, and I never go anywhere else. Well, not for carpets. I'm sure their vinyl flooring's top quality too, but I haven't had a chance to try that yet.

(You've got my phone number if you want to rectify that situation).

Anyhoo, the tragedy is that the decorating's not finished yet, so we can't have it fitted tomorrow. But I appreciated the offer. They're lovely people at Carpetright, and I won't hear a word said against them.

Let's face it though, I'm not the only member of this family that wields great power. This was Amelie at 5:30pm this afternoon...


If Mr Carpetright's reading this, I promise to keep the next one more tidy. Especially if you let me have it for free.

It's my second Father's Day, and things are going downhill already. Last year Amelie presented me with two CDs, a box of truffles and some personalised chocolate. This year I got a Banoffee Pie and a Chocolate Refrigerator Cake. I'd show you a photo, but I've eaten them both already. I did suggest that maybe she could have got me something which would last longer than two hours into Father's Day morning, but as her official spokesperson (Lisa) told me, "You already have everything you want". Plus a waistline I don't.

To be fair though, they were damn fine cakes. In fact they weren't just cakes, they were M&S cakes. I'm tempted to go back for more before I become so crippled with arthritis that I can no longer lick my own fingers.

Anyhoo, in the absence of any Father's Day photos, here's a close-up of a carpet...


Lisa and I bought that yesterday for our new flat. It's called 'Aubergine', which is interesting because if I had an aubergine that colour, I'd throw it away. We're combining it in the living room with walls painted in this shade of violet...

We're choosing so many fruity pastels, we could both get jobs at Rowntree. That colour's known as 'Amethyst Showers 4', which sounds like half a scoreline from the gay football league. It's a light, fresh colour, which should provide the perfect background for Amelie to draw on the walls in biro. It won't matter if she drops moussaka on the carpet either.

Having spent yesterday in Carpetright, I took Amelie into town this morning to look for some Maisy Mouse books. She's already got five, but the words "MORE MAISY!!!" are constantly reverberating around this flat, and there's only so many times I can read 'Maisy Goes to Hospital' without checking into the mental health ward myself. Interestingly, the character's Wikipedia entry begins with the words "Maisy Mouse is a fictional mouse", presumeably to differentiate her from all the other cartoon mice which are, in fact, real. Obviously I haven't let Amelie read that - she'd be heartbroken.

Sadly we didn't find any Maisy adventures that she hasn't already got, but I did buy her a book called 'Quack', which is possibly the most surreal thing I've ever read. I'd tell you about it, but frankly it warrants a blog post of its very own. Possibly with a video of Lisa reading it aloud.

But anyway, it may be Father's Day, but there are mothers out there who need help too. So rather than putting my feet up in front of the World Cup with a pair of Dad slippers and a cup of tea, I'm off to do a list of DIY jobs for Lisa's Mum. It's my best chance of getting more cake.

Three weeks ago today, I went to see my doctor about my prostate and was sent for an x-ray on my little finger.

Two weeks ago today I had the accompanying blood test.

And one week ago today I was supposed to phone up for the results of both.

Unfortunately I've been busy making sure my own patients get their results on time, and having done five all-day clinics in a row, it wasn't until 8:45am this morning that I finally had a chat with my doctor.

He said the x-rays show degenerative changes. I said "Eh?". He said "It looks like arthritis".

So it's official: I'm old and decrepit. And my guitar-playing days could be numbered.

But not as numbered as my white blood cells. Apparently the haematology revealed a slightly low white blood cell count, so while I'm waiting to be referred to a rheumatologist at the hospital, I have to book myself in for a second blood test to confirm whether I have some hideous disease, or if I'm just more red-blooded than the average bloke. To be honest, I wasn't really paying attention. I was busy thinking about the retinopathy grading test I was due to sit at work, and which he was making me late for.

But the good news is I passed! After a year spent eyeballing the sugar-daddies of Sussex, I'm now officially qualified to diagnose diabetic retinopathy in the eyes of the unfortunate. It was the only decent test result I had all day.

It's always good to start the day by being subjected to a torrent of verbal abuse. But today it didn't come from Lisa. I was actually sitting in my car outside my flat at 8am this morning, signalling right, and watching the traffic crawl past at 10mph as I waited for some kind soul to let me out. This is Brighton, so obviously it took a while. But having been there for a couple of minutes with my eyes glued to the wing mirror (not literally - that would be painful), I saw a driver leave a short gap ahead of him and flash his lights at me. I naturally pulled straight out, whilst mentally offering to have his children and give him my last Rolo.

I was just about to raise my hand to say thank you, when he suddenly started honking his horn at me. Which came as something of a surprise. But not as much as when he stuck his head out of the car window and started hurling obscenities at me. As we continued along Eastern Road, me feeling confused, him gesticulating at me with a potty mouth like an X-rated Duke of Hazzard, I looked at his car in my rear view mirror and realised what had happened. He hadn't flashed me. He'd just chosen that exact moment to turn on his headlights.

Naturally I wanted to stop and explain the situation, but when you're in a low-speed chase with a man who looks like he could happily kill you, it's probably not a good idea to stop. And to think that thirty seconds earlier I would have had his children. That was the shortest romance in history.

Anyhoo, the good news is that I made it to Crowborough (again) without being murdered. And what's more, I've cleaned the lens of my camera. So here's another everyday scene from the High Street...


I think that's possibly the most disturbing thing I've ever seen. I thought it was an art installation from the Turner Prize for Paedophiles, but apparently they're just doing a shop-fitting for a new children's boutique. I still don't like where that boy's putting his hand though.

At least someone's sleeping well at the moment...


She's so much less trouble when she's in bed. If only I could say the same for Lisa. We'd barely got under the duvet last night when she was physically sick. Possibly at the sight of me naked. I had to run to the bathroom for a bucket before I was swept away on a wave of vomit. It was all very sudden, so it could be anxiety, or possibly pregnancy, but knowing our luck, it'll be a summer bout of winter vomiting virus.

After a disturbed night, I was in Crowborough today, visiting my fourth hospital in three days. So if you're wondering where the NHS budget's going, it's on my travel expenses. The good news is that my routine is helping to educate Amelie. Every time she hears the word 'hospital', she now says "Daddy!". It's a nightmare if we're trying to watch Holby City.

Anyway, Crowborough is my kind of place. All the men turn up in suits, the women arrive in pearls, and I parked next to brand new Jag in the car park. As a naturally classy person, I fit right in. I could describe the place in detail, but a picture paints a thousand words, so here's a photo I took on my walk into the town centre at lunchtime...


It's the only town I know with a ride-on lawnmower shop.

And I apologise for the dreadful state of my camera lens. I don't know who's responsible, but frankly it's got Amelie's fingerprints all over it.

As luck (and the rota) would have it, I was doing a clinic in Lewes yesterday, and halfway through the morning I opened up a patient's records on my computer to check who his GP was, and was faced with an oh-so-familiar name. I had to physically restrain myself from shouting "Oooh! I've got your doctor's sofa!". It's a small world.

Unfortunately it's not a small sofa. And life isn't always suite. I was at Horsham Hospital this afternoon when I received a distress signal from Brighton. I wasn't back from West Sussex until late, but I went straight up to the new flat after work to assess the situation. On the plus side, we can get both the sofas and the armchair into the flat. On the downside, we can't get them into any of the rooms.

So either we spend the rest of our lives watching TV in the hall, or I borrow my Dad's power tools and start sawing. Honestly, I could weep.

But let's face it, things could be worse...


That's why Lisa doesn't want Amelie picking up Chloe.

I got into a few scrapes over the weekend. In fact I was completely floored. At one point I was lying face down on the ground, covered in dirt, wondering what I'd got myself into.

Suffice it to say, it's not easy removing underlay from the floorboards. I've spent most of the weekend on my hands and knees with a metal scraper, trying to get up a carpet that was probably laid when Jesus was a boy. Or when Lisa was a girl. Either way, I've had an Axminster to grind all weekend, and I'm knackered.

Having bought the sofas on Saturday, I spent the rest of the morning clearing a bedroom at the new flat in which to store them while we have the living room redecorated. I then decided I should get the carpets up before the painters move in. That took most of Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday morning. I've never inhaled so much dust. If underlay is made of asbestos, I'm a dead man.

The result is that the hallway and living room are now carpet-free and thoroughly scraped (if a little dusty), leaving the way clear for the sofas to be delivered on Tuesday and the painters to start work on Wednesday. I've decided to employ the same firm that decorated Lisa's Mum's new flat. They seemed to do a good job, and they bring their own sandwiches. I'm not on first name terms with them yet though. They insist that I call them Mum & Dad.

Lisa's currently browsing the Dulux website (which is a miracle as it means she's not on Facebook), and is doing her best to choose the kind of colour scheme that would make Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen proud. We're tempted to do Amelie's bedroom in Raspberry Diva, but Lisa's concerned that if we have another child, it might be a boy, and if he's forced to share a pink bedroom, he could be scarred for life. That's if living with Amelie isn't enough to tip him over the edge.

Having scraped a living on Sunday morning, I then headed up to Lisa's Mum's in the afternoon to sort out a few teething problems with her flat. It basically involved pressing a button on her freezer and re-tuning her TV, but I felt fully justified in accepting a treacle tart as payment. She's only been in the sheltered housing unit since Thursday, but already it's looking like a hotbed of romantic love. She'd barely stepped out of her front door on Saturday before she was propositioned by an ageing Casanova who took her hand in the on-site shop, and invited her up to his flat. That was followed by an offer from a female resident to discuss excursions with the menfolk. Her initial reaction has been to run a mile from every proposal and avoid people like the plague, so if things carry on like this, it'll go one of two ways: she'll either be married or housebound.