We had a lengthy discussion this afternoon about the trade offs between Unwashed Baby Spinach (Mr T's vegetable of choice for the past however many weeks of shopping for him as it lasts longer in his fridge) and the washed variety (shorter shelf life) - prompted by Mr T discovering last week that a lot of "dirt" had formed around the top of his saucepan whilst washing (twice...) the unwashed variety.

To this end, he wasn't keen to continue to ingest whatever was lurking on these unwashed leaves, and so it's the washed variety he wants (understandably I'd say based on the description he gave me of his pan water...). Fortunately Lidl continues to stock all varieties, so it proved to be an easy substitution.

For the past few visits, Miss N has asked for a bag of Walnuts from the local Turkish store opposite Aldi, and is convinced they should only cost £6.99 - I'd only been able to find the £8.99 version (with 10% extra!) on my previous visits, so this week she showed me not only a photo of the bag, but also described where to find them...and so my mission was set and I was determined not to be defeated on the walnut front.

Of course the cheaper bag was located exactly where Miss N had described it, and with that, and an easy visit to the aisles of Aldi, all was well with her shopping for another week.

The Waitrose at the Brunswick Centre has finally re-opened after its makeover, and Mrs S had received a voucher from them giving her a £5 saving, so there wasn't much doubt in which direction I'd be heading this morning after our across the kitchen table dictation session.

Apart from a few items that disappointingly couldn't be found either at the counter or in the fridges, and late phoned in additions of milk and yoghurt, it was a successful visit. Mrs S was keen to hear what changes had been made, to which I replied actually not that much (although a few aisles had been confusingly moved around) and the addition of a John Lewis homewares section - I think in a few weeks it'll all feel like very familiar territory once again.

Today's return to Mr J's involved framing and hanging some further guitar heroes of his on the wall of fame - we're on first name terms now, so it was a case of getting Carlos, Jimi, Jeff, and John Lee successfully hung - and whilst I was doing this, Mr J chatted away and played various YouTube music videos on his TV - it proved to be a highly entertaining afternoon, and by the end I had 3/4 of the band on the wall - there wasn't enough space for Carlos in the living room, so we agreed he could wait for the next visit...Mr J assured me there were only a couple of other guitarists that he wanted, and that would then complete the set (and the task!).

The highlight of today's visit to help the chatty Ms J wasn't the changing of the battery in her smoke alarm - albeit I was grateful for the step ladder she had to reach the unit in question - but her supplementary request to help get her doorbell working again.

She had a plug in unit that had stopped making a sound (a vital part of any functioning door bell...), and a complex instruction booklet. I discovered the unit has 55 different "tunes"...brilliant...and Ms J was keen to get the Cuckoo sound back as her tone of choice.

After manually scrolling through what felt like 54 of the 55 very tuneful options, we eventually found the Cuckoo - I ran downstairs to press the button and there was cooing to be heard from upstairs...