Today I have been able to ring the changes, after my trip to Morrisons yesterday.  Holiday lie-in, then 2 eggs for breakfast (10p each), with toast and tea.  What a treat!

Morning spent fiddling with e-mails as there's lots I didn't get done before I came away.  There are 5 Zimbabweans in Haslar Detention Centre.  We know and they know they can't be deported.  One has been there two years.  I'm hoping we can get all five bailed at one go.  Then they'll be free, but probably destitute until the policy changes on permission to work.  There are also e-mails about tomorrow's Glasgow launch of Independent Asylum Commission recommendations.   The endurance challenge is my private celebration of same.  Good coverage in the papers already, I am told.

I'm struggling to tune into Kim (which I'm reading after reading Edward Said, whose Orientalism exposed the prejudice of the West towards the East).  But how salutary to look back to 1900: India is under the Raj.  Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists, Christians mix freely.  Kim meets his Tibetan Lama.  Afghans come and go.  Suddenly Kipling lets his Orientalism show: 'Kim', he says, 'could lie like an Oriental'. 

Steal a look at my wife's Guardian.  Doom-laden pre-Lambeth article.  We'll see.

Lunch: lightly toasted mature processed bread (5 days old) with a light melted covering of spread and roasted haricot beans in a rich tomato sauce.  Orange.  Tea.

After lunch, Kim sends me to sleep again.  

Then I hitch a lift with my wife to go down to the coast: our favourite bit of Bamburgh beach: Stag Rock.   Sunshine, fresh breeze and cloud.  The sea rolling in against the rocks.  Sheer well-being.  

By the time we are back I'm flagging, so I have the last two slices of my loaf (with spread) and then give myself a treat.  I buy a potato from my wife for 40p, we cut it into slivers, boil it, and then fry it in spread with an egg (10p) and I add half a can of beans (10p).  For desert I have an orange.  Total cost: 69p.  Worth it at double the price!

In the evening my briefing for tomorrow arrives.  I reckon I don't have to walk to Glasgow as my fare is refundable. 

Spent on food so far: £4.56 (but I have supplies).  Other expenditure: £3.26.  Mr Micawber would be proud of me. 

     .