I receive some anonymous beef!!!

I sign the slip for the Citilink delivery man, who disappears off in his van. Not expecting a big parcel, I carry it inside with some eagerness.

It seems to be a perfectly normal parcel - an expanded polystyrene box held together by plastic bands. I snip these to see what is within.

Beef stares back at me.

I am a little taken aback by this. I eye the beef suspiciously, then double-check the name on the package. It is definitely for me.

I search in vain for some sender's details. There are none. Whoever has been sending beef through the post wants to make damn sure they remain anonymous. They are cowards.

There is a small card tucked in to the packaging. Inside are two words only, written in meticulous capital letters, in jet black ink: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY." The implication is that this sentence has been left sinisterly unfinished, with a missing "IT WILL BE YOUR LAST", "NOW WATCH OUT OR YOU WILL END UP LIKE THIS BEEF", or "WE WILL GET YOU FOR YOUR CRIMES. LOVE, THE COWS."

At a bit of a loss, I eventually remove the beef from its packaging. Unnerved, I decide to confine it securely in the freezer. I check it a few hours later. It is still there.

I confront the Methodical Builder!!!

"So," I begin, in my best this-is-going-to-be-an-important-sentence way. "Are we still definitely on course for June?"

"Ah?"

"June. We will still be finished at the end of June."

"July. End July."

"July."

"Ah, well. There's just been a bit of slippage, but July definitely."

"So we're back by two months now."

"June to July? One month."

"It was May originally."

"No, June. Always June."

"You said six months."

"Yes - six months. June."

"December, January, February, March, April, May." I count the months out on my finger, like a child, reciting each month out clearly and precisely.

"Ah, anyway - end July. End July will be fine."

"It's just that I need to tell Narcoleptic Dave when he can have his house back. I need to do that. And also they have forgotten what I look like in the Village Pub. And it would be quite nice if you could repair Short Tony's garden as well. So July. Definitely July."

"July. Yes. Tell your landlord July."

Twenty minutes later I am standing in what remains of my back garden, happily surveying the hive of activity as the 'lads' beaver away. There are people on the roof, in the cottage, outside mixing cement.

"It's great seeing so many people working away," I remark to the Methodical Builder.

"Yes, well we shall have to press on if we are going to get it finished by July."

I do some labouring.

Hurra! for the honest toil of the working man. I have always craved for the simple dignity of manual work - the sort of simple rewarding stuff like the people on the 'Uptown Girl' video - and with building work on the cottage getting slightly wembleyey, I am also desperate to move things along in any way possible.

Thus the morn finds me helping cheery Ad the labourer with his task for the day, which is removing everything from the loft above my bedroom.

I inform him that before I was a labourer I had a Very Important job that involved thinking about things a lot and being very creative and all that, and consequentially I should plan the logistics of Moving the Stuff. He looks chuffed by my offer to take half the burden of his backbreaking task. I climb up in to the loft and explain that I will pass things down if he takes the weight and then carries them all to the other side of the site.

I have no idea how my loft got to be so full of junk; heavy junk at that. I start to move the boxes and Stuff around, whistling with the carefree air of a labourer.

I pass a box to him. "It's heavy," I warn him, as I unsteadily ease it down. He takes it with about one finger and plonks it down next to him. The next box, and the next, and then all the Stuff. "Not so heavy," I lie. "Heavy." "Heavy." "Not so heavy".

The last item is an old freestanding lamp covered in dust. I pass it down to Ad. "This is light."

I laugh uproariously at my clever joke.

"It's light. Because it's a lamp, you see," I explain, as I unsteadily descend the ladder. I laugh again at my own rapier wit. He does not laugh much, which I think comes from too much exposure to the unsophisticated humour of the lads on the site. (nb as I am a labourer for the day I am allowed to call them 'the lads').

I realise that I am expected to help him carry everything out and stack it nicely. Unfortunately it has now all become heavy, even the light, which ruins my joke a bit. We lug everything across the site, me sweating profusely.

The thing they do not tell you about being a labourer is that it is fucking laborious. I leave the last few bits and pieces to Ad, slipping off to the car and back to my temporary residence at Narcoleptic Dave's, secure in the knowledge that my cottage will be finished forty minutes earlier than before.

"That'll be four pounds, please."

We took our two pints into a suitable corner. Nick's alsation lolled on a bench and eyed me with casual disinterest, secure in the knowledge that should we come to any disagreement about seating arrangements, it could always create some room by eating me.

Having just walked off possibly the nicest village bowling green in Britain, my heart was full of the joy of Englishness - the land of Betjeman, of Elgar, Nelson and Constable, of Drake, Shakespeare and Allsopp. I sipped my beer with satisfaction and pride.

The LTLP returns to work in around a month's time, basically because they have stopped paying her to sit around at home occasionally changing nappies. This will leave me in sole charge of looking after a baby all day, which is personally quite worrying as nobody else in the world has ever had to do this ever.

And, more to the point, she cannot guarantee to be home by the time I leave for bowls. I explained this to Nick, who made cross noises about fulfilling fixtures, etc., and gave me a list of games that I was down for. I read this with some growing alarm.

My gut feeling is that the LTLP will be happy to leave work early occasionally so I can get to my important bowls matches, but two or three nights a week would be pushing it a bit. I am not sure how my playing schedule got to be so intense, given that I am by far the most rubbish player in the club and display no signs whatsoever of getting any better. But the list was there in black and white, mainly black as it was the paper that was white. I made positive noises from the back of my throat.

My plan at present is to experiment with playing whilst carrying the baby in a papoose. I think I can sort of dip down quite vertically to release the wood (nb that is the real name for a bowl, if you call it a bowl people will think you are an idiot) - this would ensure that the baby did not fall out the top.

I do not think this has been done before, but it will be worth a go.

A quick bulletin for the weekend-post collectors-item pile - the full site feed is now being published.

You can get it at http://feeds.feedburner.com/JonnyB

If you're already subscribed (via Bloglines, for instance), could you change your subscription to this feed? Ta. I'm planning on putting additional thingies on the new one, if I get time. Plus it will allow me to stalk you.

If you emailed me in the past to ask me to do the long feed thing and I told you to go away and mind your own business and stick your head in a goat then I'm very sorry and withdraw that, especially the goat bit.

If anybody with any sort of technical clue is reading and I have made a big boo boo (about the site feed not working, not the goat) then please do say so. And enjoy the rest of your Sunday afternoon.

O! Cornwall, with your rugged crags; your crashing surf; your incessant and unrelenting places beginning with 'Treg'. How I miss your bounteous bounty!

The reality is, of course, that lots of Cornwall is post-industrially a little grim. One of British history's object lessons in what happens when a key source of wealth fucks off and disappears over the horizon pulling moonies from the back of the coach, the UK's notion of the place as one for leisurely fortnights by the sea munching on pasties and cream teas must be a source of irk to some.

Let's not mention Jamie Oliver.

Some Cornish people want independence, and go about this by spray painting the Cornish flag on English Heritage signs. To an outsider, this direct action has more than a smattering of the Wolfie Smiths about it, but whilst I don't necessarily agree with the Cornish Stannary Parliament lot, or their more radical offshoot, the Provisional Oo-Ar-A, I'm generally in favour of letting people run their own lives should they so wish.

The Scottish Independence people have been very supportive of this journal in the past, and even Wales has shown that it can have its own assembly and make its own decisions, which is not bad for a small country about the size of Wales. The River Tamar would make an excellent defensive border in case of terrorist attack and the example of New Zealand has shown that - despite all the well-publicised doubters - if properly governed, long thin countries can be economically and politically successful.

So yay! for Cornish Independence. But Gordon Brown would never allow it. He is too dependent on revenues from fudge.

I jest, of course. I have no wish to become the Cornish Anne Robinson, by hosting a Redruth-based quiz show with ginger hair, a severe drink problem and a plasticky face. Nor do I wish to become unpopular in Cornwall.

Anyway, lots of Cornwall is post-industrially a little grim. We sped through that bit and on to the part where you can sit by the sea munching on pasties and cream teas.

I return from my holiday!!!

Thank you everso to my old, dear and quite fit friend Betty for guest editing for the week. And hullo and welcome to the new people that she has attracted.

Whilst I hear what you're saying about wanting her to start a blog all of her own (bettythemysteriousactress dot blogspot dot com or suchlike), frankly I am quite happy with her having to rely on me and be grateful for the chance of some exposure to the cutting edge internet readers I have. So sorry, I won't let her. He who pays the Piper, etc.

An emergency bowls match has dashed my plan to write something this evening, so I shall be back tomorrow.

I am going to Cornwall!!!

Back in a week.

---

Whilst I am away, my Private Secret Diary will be guest edited by my good friend Betty.

We have a long and fine tradition of guest editors here, from New York Comedian Jill Twiss to top TV writer Salvadore Vincent. Well, that's just about it. Maybe it's just a fine tradition.

Betty's an actress who, like Salvadore, prefers to write under a nom de plume (that is French for 'name of pen'). But of course in this medium it's what one writes rather than Who one is that's the thing. Please make her very welcome and I will see you all in a week or so.

We visit the big city.

With my new family, I have not had a chance to do this recently. I have missed the buzz, the vibrancy, the lights. The shops and theatres. The restaurants. The throngs of people, the traffic, the noise and the intense urban atmosphere.

Baby Servalan stares wide-eyed as we step out into the Norwich car-park.

It is quickly decided that we should split up, the LTLP wishing to buy women's clothes and me not wishing to buy women's clothes. I head into a department store with the Baby.

As I walk round, I feel an unusual sensation coming from somewhere. It takes me a while to identify it, what with it being unusual and all that, but by the time I have reached the fancy stationery section I have twigged: women are looking at me in a leering fashion.

I quicken my pace. I had heard before that men with cute babies are particularly desirable to the opposite sex, but this is the first time that I have experienced it in practice. I slouch a bit and try to make myself look as frumpy as possible, but it seems to have no effect, so I go for a coffee.

"Would you like anything else?" asks the waitress girl coyly as she collects my cup. I look at her in some alarm. "No thank you," I reply, and hastily pay the bill.

I explain my problem to the LTLP when we meet up again. She laughs at me and tells me that women don't really leer at men with babies and that it is all my imagination, but it is pretty well exactly the same reply that I give her about looking at women's breasts so I am not convinced. I am told to go and change a nappy, and I disappear off into Debenhams.

Not being too quick at this sort of thing, there is a queue outside when I leave the baby changing room. The two mums waiting look like they are going to drag me back into the cubicle and gang-rape me there and then, which would be a shame as it would probably break the baby-changing mat and thus spoil it for everyone. Plus I would probably get a really old-fashioned judge who would say that I was asking for it by carrying a cute Baby. I push past them for the safety of the sales floor.

I arrange to meet the LTLP back at the car. A woman sprints up to me as I am waiting for the lift. "Excuse me! Excuse me!" The lift does not arrive. I hammer the button furiously. "Excuse me!" No lift.

"She's dropped a sock," she announces, brandishing said sock. I take it from her with a strangled thank-you. Stealing socks off babies in order to create an opening with their fathers. She leaves disappointed and frustrated.

"Well that's a nice day out then," says the LTLP as we pass under the barriers and out onto the main road. I say nothing, and put my foot down to speed back to the sanity of the village.

The time for casually mentioning arrives.

"I think I'll take my new laptop," I casually mention. "Will you pass the pepper?"

No pepper appears. She gives me a Rosemary West stare.

We are preparing to go on holiday to Cornwall, at the end of this week. As you are aware, recently I have been particularly good in that I have gone on a diet to show solidarity with the LTLP. I have also helped with the nappies etc. and backed down a bit over the washing up. I feel that I might be allowed to take my new laptop on holiday as a reward for this.

More to the point, we are going away with the in-laws. This is the first time that we will have gone away with the in-laws, and will earn me about three grillion Yeahbuts to use on an as-and-when basis. (The Yeahbut is the SI unit of bringing things up during bargaining at some point in the future, as in 'Yeahbut back in 2006 we went on holiday with your parents, so it's your turn to clean the bathroom'; 'Are you STILL bringing up that disastrous holiday we had with my parents? And besides, we have a robot to do that now, come let us go to the holographic cinema in our flying car'.)

I explain that I am planning to sit on the beach and tap into the relaxed seaside ambience to create something brilliant that will change our lives. She points out that there is a perfectly good beach at the end of the road that I am at liberty to utilise for lives-changing creation. I point out that it is not quite the same as being on holiday with its air of carefree stresslessness. She reminds me that we will be in a small villa with her mother and father and the baby, and I have to admit that she is a bit right.

I do not mention the Wifi access issue. I suspect that Cornwall will probably have a few wifis, as quite a few tourists will want to order their fudge online these days. She would be cross if she thought I meant to go on to the internet.

I keep my mouth shut. The pepper arrives, somewhat grudgingly.