I awoke this morning to Armageddon in the bathroom. The apartment has an 'electric loo'. That means it makes a reasonably gentle grinding noise every time you flush it. Except last night. Then it made slightly more of a juddering noise than usual - and proceeded to keep half-waking me up by repeating this at intervals through the night. In the morning, I awoke to find the loo overflowing with water - water which I shall here politely describe simply as 'discoloured'. The floor was wet and stinking. An electric malfunction? A blockage? No idea, but it involved waking-up the owners and having to stand by, humiliated, as they proceeded to repair the damage with a vast number of towels, plungers, etc. A plumber was later called, but didn't arrive. So none of us know if the loo's been fixed or not, or whether it just had a momentary seizure last night. In either case, I now feel 'tentative' about my bodily functions, to say the least. I stopped off for some extra bananas on the way back from the library, in the hope that I can keep everything inside until I get back to the UK. I spent most of the day in a slightly darkened reading-room, avoiding the rain (the weather's changed again).But I have to admit to being a bit distracted. Finally, just as I arrived back at the apartment I heard voices singing 'Happy Birthday!' from the owners' place. I wonder if whoever's birthday it was had the breakfast they'd been hoping for this morning. My guess is, probably not.