No snakes today. On Friday the press office rang up to ask if we had been picking up live snakes that had been released near a school. That's what I like about this job - you never quite know what the phone will bring. Saturday was a day for having my hair done, cut and coloured - a rather fetching purple brown colour, very dark, unleashing my inner Goth princess. It must be admitted that my IGP is never far away and doesn't need much unleashing, just the tiniest amount of encouragement. Unfortunately although I am 42 (well nearly) on the outside, I am still 17 inside.

Saturday night we watched BBC4 who were doing Die Valkurie from the ROH, with Bryn Terfel singing Wotan, and Rosamund Plowright singing Brunnhilde. Glorious singing, although again miserable depressing costumes. Why oh why can't they just do proper ones with armour and decent hairdos? Think of an Arthur Rackham illustration and you're there in theory. The singing though was sublime, and I was moved to tears by the beauty of the final act and indeed the powerful eroticism of the bond between Siegmund and Sieglinde - if that is done right, the powerful attraction which has the twin taboo of both adultery and incest (although they don't know that at first)absolutely sizzles. However, the final act was accompanied by a gentle and rhythmic sound from the adjacent sofa, comprising a snoring husband. How anyone can sleep through a Wagner opera defeats me, but he said the music was very peaceful. Hmmmm.

Sunday we toddled down to Somerset for the day to see Andrew's parents, both looking very well, and they had the fire lit which is lovely in the winter. The day seemed to fly by, and then the young master jumped on a very early train this morning to get up to London. Unfortunately, the train was delayed by points problems so he phoned me about an hour and a half after leaving home to announce he'd barely gone 10 miles. And the Govt wonders why people drive cars.........

Meanwhile I trundled off to a site meeting with a location I have written about before. Meeting attended by politicians and sure enough, there was plenty of evidence of the aftermath of the oldest profession. What surprised me was the sheer variety of colours for the condoms - there were very bright red and yellow ones tied up on the floor, which of course made them easy to see. On a Goth website I recently saw black condoms advertised, but I hadn't caught up with the move to such a dazzling variety. The police seemed to take a very sanguine view of the problem- I think it is highly unlikely that they will want to move the issue away from industrial estates onto the nuisance caused by prostitution in residential areas. If we had sensible legislation in this country we would not allow street work, but would have properly licensed brothels where professionals could work in peace, safety and dispose of their waste properly. However this is never an issue that society wants to tackle.