I'm still alive (i.e. I haven't died - yet), and there is now a man with a bright yellow jacket on which says "GAS" on the back. He has a stick which he is waving about all over the place, which makes sounds when it detects gas.

He says it is a bad gas leak, and he says it's got nothing to do with the men installing the new street light nearby this morning (that was my theory).

However, I'm assuming we cannot rule out an explosion at this stage. I'm just hoping one of our neighbours doesn't drive up the road and flick a fag end out of the window.

There was an incident when I was a kid, in a village about 4 miles away, where a policeman who lived there could smell gas in the middle of the night, and he went round and got all his neighbours out of their houses and away from it just in time before there was a huge explosion.

But I'm staying where I am. I've got work to do. Besides which, my room is the opposite end of the house. With any luck, only the other side of the house will get destroyed and I'll have time to jump out the window.