If David Marks tells me a job takes an hour, I allow three. You know a job isn't going to go right when you put the socket set down on the rocker box too heavily and one of the screwdriver bits bounces out of the tray and disappears into the engine bay. But doesn't reach the driveway below.

Removal of fan and (broken) viscous coupling is easy enough, as is the dismantling of top hoses and header tank. The power steering pump tipped in and off came the belt. This is better.

So how come I ran out of time and it got dark? An hour to get the pump off and another hour to scrape away every last morsel of old gasket from the block, that's how come. And everything is so difficult to get at. Despite the huge engine bay the stretch to the front of the engine is considerable and I ache all over. And whoever decided to put those wing mirrors on my car should be shot. I've always felt they ruin the line of the car but when you come to work under the bonnet you really start to hate them.

I did manage to get everything reassembled but not tightened and checked, by which time dinner was a withered, dry morsel.

Two bottles of Adnam's Broadside cheered me up so I decided to change the virus and firewall software on my computer. At 1am my internet connection still wouldn't work and when I go to bed I can't sleep.