It was a relaxing week. L— had the week off, I don’t have any work at the moment. It was a novelty to be able to relax in a home that isn’t a construction site for the first time in many months.

I cycled to Ikea to pick up a few things, and realised that it only takes me 20 minutes on the efficient, mostly segregated route that I’ve found. It would be a couple of minutes quicker still if they hadn’t put the cycle stands so far from the entrance.

We finally saw Hamilton on Thursday night, only about 11 years after one of my then-colleagues, who had seen it in New York, first told me about this fantastic new musical.

I’m sure I’m the last person in Christendom to have seen it, so I won’t bore you with details. It lived up to its reputation, and as well as being fun, it’s an impressive show: it must take a lot to memorise all that choreography and singing parts.

I went to another musical on Friday: I Wish You Well: The Gwyneth Paltrow Ski-Trial Musical. L— was away for the weekend so I got a last-minute ticket and cycled into the West End to see it. It sounds daft, and it is, and it’s immensely entertaining.

I caught a gig by Arfoud Brothers & Sisters at the Toulouse Lautrec Jazz Club on Saturday night. They played mesmeric Moroccan- and Brazilian-influenced grooves on the guembri accompanied by jazzy guitar, piano, and drums. Nice.

There was an interlude in which one of them played a piece on an instrument called a lotar, a smaller kind of spike lute. The instrument sounds very like the sanshin, and when he started playing, the musical scale was just like that used in Okinawa, too. It was uncanny.

This was also a convenient short cycle ride from home, although as I cycled home, full of joy on a warm evening, I went over a bump on an unlit section of cycle path that sent so much force into my saddle that it ended up changing its angle by about 10 degrees. Fortunately, all the force was focused through my sit bones, or it might have been painful, rather than merely inconvenient.

I borrowed a book from Deptford library recently. I live in Southwark, but Southwark didn’t have the book, and (unlike Southwark) Lewisham don’t charge for reservations, so it’s worth the short extra journey.

They sent me a reminder email to tell me that I’d soon need to return it, titled “Pre-overdue Notice from Deptford Library”.

“Pre-overdue”? Isn’t that just “due”?

A few links: