It’s the first day back at school, and if there’s an award next year for the Least Well Prepared Parents you might want to bet on us because those odds will be in your favour.

This is the first time that most of the Elderbeast’s friends have seen his blue hair. Their reaction is appropriate. Luckily it appears that the institution is tolerant of different hair colours too, which is good: it spares us a needless squabble. 

Having fed on Chinese takeaway for the last two days I make us an appallingly healthy dinner tonight to make up for it: roasted carrots with ginger and maple syrup; green beans in butter with cajun seasoning; steamed baby brocolli and poached eggs. I hope that cramming a few veg in will help with the overwhelming tiredness that’s plagued over the past weeks.

I settle down to finish On Writing (the Stephen King book). Turns out that what my Kindle version reckons is the last page is more like the last 45 pages. I reach page 303 of 303 … and the pages just keep coming. The particular edition I’m reading has a postscript (much of which is the tale of the car crash that nearly killed King back in 1999) but something’s gone wrong: every page of the postscript is page 303. It’s the page that never ends. Seems appropriate.