Sweeney is leaving. And I mean leaving for good, not just going on holiday.

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I started feeling something was amiss yesterday morning when he took down all the balloons he'd put up ten days ago to celebrate the burglaries in the two flats below mine. Then in the afternoon he and another man hosed down the terrace with a machine-powered hose. The noise drowned my tennis commentary (I had the window open due to the stifling heat.) Now anyone who has to clean their terrace that thoroughly is definitely suspect. Yesterday evening they had six people to dinner. And today the witch, who normally does nothing but loll about the terrace in her ugly towelling dressing-gown, smoking, is in full action. The dining-room table is piled high with clothes. Dressed in olive coloured linen trousers and a white strappy top, her hair dishevelled, she is taking each item of clothing, holding it up to look at it, folding it, and putting it into a packing case on the floor. Hang on, but Sweeney is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it's just the witch who's going? But it does seem odd that she's not packing into a case - large cardboard boxes imply heavy-duty house moves, in my experience...