| Tue 1 | Like the first of every month, a day full of tedious admin: household, literary society, patient group … It just multiplies. |
| Wed 2 | Good grief! My chilli plants are still producing a few fruit. Picked 5 today. But they’ll get pruned back later this month so they can put up new growth and hopefully a good crop for a third summer. |
| Thu 3 | Successfully bid for another picture at our local auction house. It’s the brother of one I already have, so really wanted, and I was surprised to get it as cheaply as I did. |
| Fri 4 | Why do jobs always take 10 times longer than they should. A 15 minute update to a website this afternoon took over 4 hours of endlessly fiddling around. And that was just one of 10 things I was supposed to do in that time. Hello weekend – NOT! |
| Sat 5 | So intent on slogging away at website updates this afternoon, I didn’t realise how cold I was – absolutely frozen. Unusually for me I needed a thick sweater to warm up. |
| Sun 6 | Rain lashing down and a gale blowing all night. Wet when I went to bed, and still wet when I got up at 07:15. Awoken, of course, by a drowned Boy cat arriving at 06:15. Still, up early meant lots done. |
| Mon 7 | Went to collect the painting I bought last week at our local auction house. First time going somewhere non-medical in almost 2 years! The crocuses and the alder catkins are coming out, in lovely Spring-like sunshine. |
| Tue 8 | Discovered why one of our tubs of bulbs had fallen from its position to lie on its side on the lawn below. The trail camera shows Mr Fox jumping up on it from below, making it topple over the edge. Exit Mr Fox in haste. |
| Wed 9 |  Received an interesting-looking new book in the mail: Understanding European Wines by Charlie Boston. I don’t know the author, but I do know the guy who’s written an introduction about Anthony Powell and Wine. It goes straight to the top of Mount TBR. |
| Thu 10 | Lovely trip to the dentist this morning. An hour in the chair for crown prep, but no impressions as they now have a wizzy machine which does scans instead. Sad that as I opted for a gold crown, I won’t get to see the scans printed as a crown onsite: gold has to go to the lab. |
| Fri 11 | Actually managed to do a bit of family history today for the first time in ages. And here’s an interesting problem: my half-aunt wants a printed chart of the family line back as far as I have it. This runs to 28 sheets of A4 (14×2) so will be about 3×0.5 metres! How best to do it? |
| Sat 12 | Family history curiosity of the day. May 1563 in Cranbrook, Kent; marriage between Reynolde Madisson and Frysweed Webb. Then in the same church in June 1626; marriage between William Unicombe and Regenerat Weekes. (Sadly none are mine.) |
| Sun 13 | Sunday lunch of cold leftover chicken & chickpea curry sandwiches. The curry maybe even better than it was hot last night. Plus an improved loaf thanks to the new bread machine (the old one has retired after almost 10 years!). |
| Mon 14 | How is this our 44th Valentine’s Day together? Our first (1979) was really cold; like 5cm of ice even on major roads, but the buses were still running. We were at my parents and still managed to go out (by bus) to a fantastic local restaurant: Blunk’s in Waltham Abbey (now long gone). The meal cost £50 (almost a week’s take-home) for the 2 of us! |
| Tue 15 | Dear God! How much more rain can the garden take? We’ll soon be swimming in mud; the continual parade of muddy paws suggests the cats already are. |
| Wed 16 | Hosted the second evening talk for the literary society. An immensely interesting talk from Nick Birns which was well attended. An hour easily turned into an hour and a half. |
| Thu 17 | Great fun after dinner: we decided to strip down the old bread machine for recycling. Two of us and one hour to produce a carrier bag of metal/electrical parts and one of plastic parts; plus hundreds of screws; and a bonus cut finger from the brittle, heat-stressed plastic. |
| Fri 18 | We’ve not had wind like this since the Great Storm of October 1987. The Gods have obviously forgotten about the effect of beans and Jerusalem artichokes. |
| Sat 19 | I’ve been far too lax during the pandemic about wearing my hearing aids around home. So I’m making a concerted effort to get used to wearing them during the day. Let’s see if I can keep it up. |
| Sun 20 | The bloody Winter Olympics are over, thank the gods! They’re not intended to be, but all Olympics have become a nauseating festival of global corruption and willy-waving. |
| Mon 21 | What’s this? The third storm in a week? And not even any snow? Now come on, this just isn’t playing the game, even for winter in London. |
| Tue 22 | Early evening meeting. Why are they always across food time? And how much longer can they resist meeting in person, which still worries me witless. |
| Wed 23 | Lamb Shank & Fennel Casserole with Garlic Bread for dinner. I also cooked Chicken & Mushroom Pie (with homemade shortcrust pastry!), so we have that (cold) for tomorrow. |
| Thu 24 | To the dentist (the only reason I didn’t have toasted garlic bread for breakfast) to get my new piece of gold mouth jewellery. Then spent a chunk of the afternoon picking oakum: demolishing some cotton string to make bird nesting material. |
| Fri 25 | Arrggghhhh!!!!! No supermarket delivery due to IT issues. Have had to rebook it for tomorrow. Now tell me why we have a full freezer. |
| Sat 26 | Finally got the supermarket delivery this afternoon. The the logic (or incompetence) of the pickers continues to astonish me. This week we were short 2 bunches of daffodils; but gained 1 fennel (3 rather than 2) and 3 tubes of tomato paste (8 rather than 5). OK we win but that’s a hard way to make a profit. |
| Sun 27 | Found an error in my family tree: Elizabeth Cotton, wife of Stephen Marshall (right name; wrong identity). Stephen (born c.1763) is currently the furthest I can get my paternal line; I know where he logically fits but I don’t have the evidence, and the records seem not to exist. I now know Elizabeth Cotton’s name, but no details. |
| Mon 28 | Absolutely no go, either mental or physical, today despite a reasonable night. So, yet again, little got done – and none of the things I’d planned. |
