dug 
well, I missed my first deadline. The carpet guy gets here at 8:30 and the plan was for all the plastering and painting to have been done. I’ve still got a fair bit of wall-mending to do so will have to use lots of drop-cloths. Still, it’ll be good fun having new flooring…
On a different note, I’ve been listening to an emi classics re-edition of a 1959 recording of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. Maria Callas had never performed the opera live before but produced a bit of magic for the microphone. The recording took place at the Scala in Milan with the choir and orchestra Teatro Alla Scala with Giuseppe di Stefano singing Des Grieux. It’s a mono recording, but I cry as I plaster during the fourth act. I’ve heard people complain that Callas used too many paint colours in her coloratura, but I had never heard her before and bought the cd to see what it was all about. What an album :-)