Our cooker is broken at the moment and while we are waiting for a new one to be installed, we have to cook everything using an electric wok, our George Foreman grill and a microwave. This was an experiment to see if I could cook a calzone using the 'George'.

I made a normal pizza base then spread red pesto on it. I then added anchovies and slices of sausage, leek and courgette. This was topped with slices of cheese before folding and crimping the edges, a bit like a cornish pasty.

I cooked it on the grill until the base felt cooked to the touch and I could hear the cheese sizzling inside. I don't know how long it took because I didn't time it.

The end result was fairly good. The crimped edges were still a bit soft and doughy but the rest of the calzone was good.

I have a Compaq desktop computer which I don't use very often. It used to be my main machine but I now mainly use it to back up data or the scanner which is attached to it.

It has been running infuriatingly slowly recently so I decided to reinstall Windows, using the 'System Recovery' option which replaces the contents of the hard drive with the 'factory fresh' copy of XP.

The computer now runs quite quickly again. Boot-up time has been reduced from over 4 minutes to 38 seconds. The computer had so much software installed, and a lot of rubbish would load on start-up. The desktop actually used to appear after 2½ minutes but it was a further 2 minutes before you could open any windows or run any programs.

Clicking on files and opening windows is amazingly quick now. There used to be several seconds of disk-thrashing and a long wait when the "Start" button was clicked. Now the menu appears pretty much instantly. I had started to wonder whether my old computer had always been this slow, and I only thought I remembered it being fast when new, but no. It is back to being quick and responsive again.

I spent most of this morning working in the garden, digging up what was left of the vegetables and putting them on the compost. The compost heap seems to be working. I managed to get several tubs of dark brown well rotted compost out of it. It doesn't look as good as 'shop bought' compost but it should work ok. You can't tell it's made from kitchen scraps and waste animal bedding.

After adding the corn stalks, courgette plants and tomato plants onto the heap, I gave it a good mixing to get oxygen in, to get it started for next year.

There are still a few plants in the garden. The strawberries and still giving small quantities of fruit. One tomato plant is still going strong, displaying some large green tomatoes which I hope will eventually ripen. A squash plant at the end of the garden looks on its last legs though. There is one small squash on it, but I don't think there is time for it to ripen before the plant dies.