Mathom sounds like something out of The Meaning Of Liff, but it’s not. Apparently it’s a word from Tolkien meaning something you have no immediate use for, but which you want to keep just in case. In the stories, the Hobbits sometimes had entire extra houses dedicated to mathoms.

This sounds just like my mother. There’s lots of stuff at her house, but even more at Peter’s block at Ferntree Gully, where Peter built a big shed just to store stuff they don’t yet want to throw out.

I think they might be closet hobbits.

I count myself lucky, given the power chaos yesterday. I got out of the city just before things really got pair pear-shaped (even if the train was an old non-aircon one, at least it was moving, and not too crowded, and we opened all the windows, which helped a bit). Marita was, I think, less fortunate: her train was packed to the rafters, though airconditioned.

And we didn’t lose power last night at home, unlike plenty of others.

Spent some of the evening sitting on the back porch, sipping cool drinks and watching out for invading cockroaches. Got three in about an hour. That Baygon spray stuff is marvellous.

A possum stopped past to say hello. Sat on the edge of the roof for a few minutes, watching, waiting, probably silently complaining about the heat. A bit rough when you have a fur coat, I suppose.