Here is my (Neil’s) lovely bike, parked outside our offices yesterday, chained to the lamp-post on the corner of Hanbury and Wilkes Street at about 4.00pm. I only posted the pic on this site yesterday.

By 5.00 my bike was gone. Nicked. Bastards. It has somewhat dented my enthusiasm for the neighbourhood. Other than that, I’m loving it round here.

If you’re in the area and you see someone riding around on my lovely black Trek Navigator T420 – there aren’t too many of them around – kick the villain off it and stand on their neck until the police come.

A couple of days into our new home and things are starting to settle down. The builders are amongst us and may be our companions for some time yet. But already things have changed a lot since we last posted pix on here. Here’s how it’s looking:

The scaffolding has come down from the outside. The graffiti is still there, obviously.This is the glass wall on the Wilkes Street side, on what will be the Sherlock Holmes room.

This is the kitchen/cafe in the basement.

This is Darren, soaking up that new leather smell in our plush banquette seating area.

We put this starcase in to link the ground floor reception area with the cafe/public area in the basement.

Here’s ben holding forth.

Here’s our reception.