| Mon 1 | A singularly unexciting day doing loads of household, and other regular, admin. But still the To Do list gets longer. |
| Tue 2 | Why is it that one’s bed is always so much more warm and comfortable when one has to get up? A real struggle to face the world this morning. |
| Wed 3 | Awoke this morning to some significant frost. The first of the winter, and possibly the first of the year. |
| Thu 4 | Why is it that when there are pieces of work needing doing for the groups I volunteer with, those with the reins always try to sloping shoulders the work onto me – when they could just as easily do it themselves? Twice today: one took 5 minutes; the other an hour and was then vetoed by the Chairman. Grrrrrr! |
| Fri 5 | It’s been one of those weeks of first world problems, topped today by (a) the supermarket delivery being 2 hours late, and (b) the Champagne delivery being 1½ hours late. Apparently you just can’t get the staff these days! |
| Sat 6 | One tray roast sausages and veg for dinner – a Mary Berry recipe, adapted as always. Comfort food on a particularly grey, dismal day. |
| Sun 7 | A few weeks ago the dog rose which grows to the top of our silver birch tree was laden with bright red hips. No more. There are hardly any remaining due to the depredations of the wood pigeons and squirrel.
 at the larger version to see just how many there were Meanwhile our small ornamental crab apple is laden with glorious bright red, marble sized fruit.  |
| Mon 8 | Bah! Depression! Humbug! A typical, unexciting and dreary Monday which hopefully doesn’t presage the week going to Hell in a handcart. But grateful (as always) to be solvent again this month. |
| Tue 9 | Other than strimming my hair, the only result today is that I’ve now finished writing & scheduling all next year’s regular monthly blog posts that can be written in advance (that’s 4 a month) plus this year’s blog Advent Calendar. There’s a feast to come! |
| Wed 10 | Mid-morning and there’s a shooting gallery line of 14 pigeons on the apex of the roof opposite. |
| Thu 11 | A young man from Octopus (our gas & electric supplier) arrived (pre-announced) this afternoon to fit a new smart meter. If they were all as polite, cheerful and efficient as him the world would work much more smoothly. He was done and dusted in an hour. Job’s a good ‘un! |
| Fri 12 | Highlight of the Year: today’s trip to the dental hygienist to be abused. |
| Sat 13 | Spent the afternoon trying to do household admin with a purring tabby & white cat stretched out on my desk. This is becoming a regular feature, which is rather lovely (if sometimes inconvenient). |
| Sun 14 | Managed to avoid most of the nauseating Remembrance Day. To quote Evelyn Waugh in 1930s: “A disgusting idea of artificial reverence and sentimentality”, or in my terms “a public display of maudlin sentiment and sycophantic obsequiousness”. If you want to know more of how I feel, see my blog at here and here. |
| Mon 15 | Last night I saw 01:01, 02:02, 03:03 and 04:04 with no more than dozes in between. This was followed by 06:45 then 11:15. No real wonder not a lot has been achieved today! |
| Tue 16 | Turned my CPAP machine on last night; it ran for 10 seconds and died. No ventilation, thus a poor night’s sleep and a crashing headache. Brompton Hospital are sending me a new machine; wonder how long that will take? |
| Wed 17 | A second night without CPAP as the new machine has not yet arrived. One always wonders how much good these things do, especially after almost 20 years, but this has made me realise I would be totally dysfunctional without the CPAP. |
| Thu 18 | The new CPAP machine has arrived. Hoping for a good night’s sleep tonight. Which indeed I had. |
| Fri 19 | Really disgraceful service (again) with the supermarket delivery – booked for 11:00-12:00, but arrived at 15:00. Topped by effectively zero communication. Their executive office got a roasting. |
| Sat 20 | Who knew today was Cat Herding Day? Awoke this morning to find two females in our front garden trying (unsuccessfully) to catch their very young cat. Good game! Later in the day we rounded up ours to flea treat them. Tilly needed it badly as I later removed over 30 moribund beasts from her at a rate of about 2 a minute. |
| Sun 21 | “By the way, the mic’s off. To turn it back on slide the switch …” Fucking shut up! That’s why it’s turned off. |
| Mon 22 | Ducked out after 30 minutes of a meeting I was dialled into this evening. I’m not wasting time while the borough’s old pussy (of all genders) argues publicly with the council over who did/didn’t do what, to whom and when. |
| Tue 23 | Discussion over dinner: Why does time whizz by so fast as you get older? The theory is that when young you have many new things happening which act as markers, so you notice time more; whereas when old there are fewer markers and everything blurs. |
| Wed 24 | Woken up just before 10 this morning by the arrival of the Boy Cat, who proceeded to lie on my pillow purring and dribbling. N and I had both overslept solidly – best thing to do on a miserable November morning. |
| Thu 25 | A limping cat: Tilly appears to have sprained her right front paw. |
| Fri 26 | Over dinner a chemist (me) trying to explain aromaticity (think benzene) and metal complexes (think chlorophyll or haemoglobin) to an art historian (N). |
| Sat 27 | A merry time was had by all turning out and auditing the freezer. As always we found a few bits of treasure, and an equal quantity of rubbish. Sadly there isn’t the empty space which we were hoping for in the run-up to Christmas. |
| Sun 28 | It’s that time already, when you have to sit down and write the Christmas cards which are going abroad. Sadly they’re getting fewer every year. Yes we do still send Christmas cards; we like to and think it is a good way to keep in touch. |
| Mon 29 | Finished making a huge pan of tomato soup, which I’d started yesterday and left to mature overnight. We then devoured half of it for tea: tasty, filling and warming. |
| Tue 30 | I wasn’t looking forward to that meeting, although it was much more interesting and less contentious than expected. Even so I’m glad it’s done. And breathe! And gin & tonic! |
| Fri 1 | Every week, by Friday teatime, I’m convinced it’s Saturday. Every week! |
| Sat 2 | Writing a monthly update for my GP’s patient group usually takes under 2 hours. But today … it took me over 4 hours because there was just so much healthcare news to be included. |
| Sun 3 | We had a 3 or 4 large radish plants still growing scruffily. I pulled them out today and one was a decent sized mooli. The others had some pretty little pink flowers but no radishes. |
| Mon 4 | Especially for N on her (big) birthday, we went to the dentist for a check-up. She has to go back in 6 weeks time for some work; I got away with being nagged. |
| Tue 5 | Somehow this was just a non-day. Been on zombie auto-pilot all day. Nothing happened. And I don’t feel I achieved anything. This is not good for the depression. |
| Wed 6 | Somehow we seem to have spent very little money in the last month – at least as far as discretionary spend goes. So we’re solvent again this month! |
| Thu 7 | Spent too much of the day playing around with photo carousels and sliders for websites. And writing blog posts. Oh, and it’s Thursday not Friday! |
| Fri 8 | Draconid Meteor Shower tonight. Not a chance. Yet again complete cloud cover. It’s all a piece with the day. |
| Sat 9 | While photographing the tree outside our house a lady came along and stopped to talk, saying how lovely the tree was.
What a breath of fresh light – we saw, we appreciated, and we shared some joy. So whoever you were, lady, thank you! |
| Sun 10 | Our resident wood pigeon is making short work of all the rose hips at the top of the silver birch. Soon there won’t be any left to feed the goldfinches over the winter. |
| Mon 11 | Nothing achieved, except too much chocolate eaten. Cadbury’s new DarkMilk is good, as is their Bournville Chocotoff. |
| Tue 12 | My mother would have been 106 today. Sad that she got to only 99. Still very much missed. |
| Wed 13 | Invited today for my Covid Booster jab – 6 months to the day after my second jab. |
| Thu 14 | Why is it that people can’t understand why GPs’ surgeries work the way they do? Doctors are employers who have a legal health & safety responsibility for their staff, as well as their patients and themselves. And the receptionists are not there to be obstructive, nosey dragons, but to help. |
| Fri 15 | Gave up on the day in early evening. I’d had enough of being bombarded on all sides by demands for things outside my control. Remember: Don’t shoot the messenger! |
| Sat 16 | We both to the local pharmacy for Covid booster jabs this morning. Although a minority, sad at the number in the pharmacy not (properly) wearing masks. |
| Sun 17 | N spotted another clump of huge fungi growing down near the pond and sent me to look. They’re each 20cm across and look like bracket fungi but aren’t: they’re growing in the ground and have gills. White to milk-chocolate brown wth darker brown gills. No idea what they are. |
| Mon 18 | I’ve had a batch of 16th to 18th century wills transcribed and spent a couple of hours looking at the family history info therein. Nothing exciting but they have confirmed much of what I already knew – which is always useful. |
| Tue 19 | I wake at 08:00. The next thing I know it’s 11:00. What happened there? |
| Wed 20 | A joyful morning herding cats. Find all three; one by one round them up and catch them; stuff them in their carriers … and take them to the V.E.T for their overdue annual check-ups and jabs. Return with a large hole in the credit card balance. |
| Thu 21 | Interesting London Historians talk (on Zoom) on the way the nations art treasures were protected during WWII. |
| Fri 22 | Awoke early to a lovely (just past full) silvery moonlit morning, followed by pastel peach-coloured sunrise. |
| Sat 23 | Auditing the wine stock, discovered we gad a bottle of gin which had somehow (I honestly know not how) got out of the store without having its security tag removed. No it wasn’t shoplifted! But how to get the tag off? |
| Sun 24 | At lunchtime a red kite gliding effortlessly around, not taking too much notice of the crow mobbing it. |
| Mon 25 | Oh dear, what has the world come to? Slumming it with fishfingers, chips and beans for tea! |
| Tue 26 | Doing the supermarket order today it feels as if overall prices have risen at least 20% since March 2020. However a quick check back suggests this probably isn’t so and the rises are no more than 5%. |
| Wed 27 | Lots done today, partly as I was up betimes and my morning meeting got moved to next week. Also took delivery of a pre-Christmas top-up for the wine cellar; just need more Champagne now! |
| Thu 28 | Got up this morning to find a pair of geezers digging a hole right outside our front gate. Then remembered the water company are going round installing meters. By midday the hole was covered with a temporary coloured (plastic?) plate; I wonder how long before the hole is filled properly? |
| Fri 29 | 01:15hrs. Why does next door’s security light come on? Oh, good evening Mr Reynard, trotting gaily down the street. |
| Sat 30 | Chaired the Anthony Powell Society AGM over Zoom to allow the officers to concentrate on the business rather than the technology. Glad to say it went well. Moral: Perfect Planning Prevents Pathetic Performance. |
| Sun 31 | Finally managed to break into the security tag on that gin bottle (see above) – at least enough to be able to decant the contents. But it required the attentions of my Dremel “mini-angle-grinder”! |
Now you might think this is a bit too early, but today I’m going to talk about our approach to Christmas cards.
First of all (and let’s get this out of the way) unlike many people we still send real Christmas cards. Not e-cards, and not a donation to charity instead. We do this because we like to, and feel it is a good way of keeping contact with friends and family. We also do it because, as you’ll see, we believe our approach adds value to people’s lives – and the evidence tends to support this.
Since 2005 we have created our own Christmas cards – that’s 17 years, including this year. But they are not traditional cards. Instead they are postcards. Many years they’re A5 size; some years DL or square. Each year, a new card.
I’ve included a few examples below, and I’ve also created a full gallery.
Many years the image on the front has been one of my photographs – and it’s quite fun choosing which one to use. A few years we’ve used an image of a piece of art we own (as long as it’s out of copyright). And a few years one of my late mother’s paintings.
But, you say, this is expensive. Well actually it isn’t; it’s a lot cheaper than buying traditional cards, and a lot simpler. OK, in the early years it did feel expensive as we were using a specialist postcard printer; that tended to cost £150 to £200 for 500 A5 cards (so 30p to 40p per card) which was at least competitive compared with traditional cards.
The last few years we’ve used VistaPrint and designed and ordered online – having done it once it is really easy and quick to do again. This year the cost has been £67 for 500 A5 cards (or just over 13p each). Even allowing for the fact that we’ll use only about half of them that’s still only 27p each. Now tell me where one can get good cards at under twice that price. (OK, they still cost a horrid amount in postage, but so would anything.)
But the advantage doesn’t stop there. For a start there’s the fact that we create a postcard; with an image on one side and a greeting on the other. There’s still space for personalising the card, and for an address label. They’re also relatively light weight, thus saving on overseas postage. With printed address labels and no envelopes, they are easy and fiddle-free to write.
On top of which everyone gets something special – and many people tell us they love receiving our cards and often keep them to enjoy. And of course we have the spare cards in stock for later years when we may not be able to produce a new card.
We ordered this year’s cards over last weekend and standard (free) delivery was expected to be in about 2 weeks. The cards arrived on Wednesday (so in 3 working days), and that is typical of VistaPrint‘s service over the years. But you’ll have to wait to see it as the design is staying under wraps for a while yet.
What’s not to like?
| Wed 1 | Another first today. During lunch, for just a few seconds, a Garden Warbler skulking through the shrubbery outside the Dining Room window. |
| Thu 2 | A very busy 2 days. Actually got done everything I needed to, but that’s not everything on my desk. |
| Fri 3 | Sitting waiting for the supermarket delivery this morning, saw the clock on the cooker say 11:11. I’m always fascinated by times like this which show a pattern, like 01:23, 23:45. |
| Sat 4 | Retrieved the two wasp traps that were put out last Saturday. Not a wasp to be counted – again! Very disappointing, but not a great surprise. |
| Sun 5 | Another day struggling with the depression: sleeping too much; not eating properly; having to resist an excess of gin. |
| Mon 6 | Payday; and time to do the monthly accounts. We’re solvent for another month – even after paying our outstanding income tax. Result! |
| Tue 7 | We bought some Granny Smith apples a few weeks ago, but never used them. Still in their supermarket wrapper they’ve kept well on the sideboard and ripened to a greenish yellow. To my surprise they were rather good: crisp, juicy and slightly sweet: unlike the green cannonballs we are normally sold. |
| Wed 8 | A lovely warm sunny day as it was 42 years ago when N and I were bound together at St Peter’s, Acton Green. |
| Thu 9 | If anything happened today, I didn’t notice. Too busy analysing survey data. |
| Fri 10 | It’s Saturday, so why is EastEnders on TV. Oh! Wait! It’s actually Friday! |
| Sat 11 | There’s a big group on Facebook about the new recipe Felix catfood making cats ill. I’ve been running a survey to try to gather evidence rather than anecdote. Today I finished analysing the 499 records. |
| Sun 12 | Just what are DPD doing delivering on a Sunday? They said the package would arrive Monday, but lo, here it is today. One does not expect this of any courier company. |
| Mon 13 | What did I do today? Apart from starting the production of some pate, I have no clue. |
| Tue 14 | So the hospital have finally decided to cancel my 2019/20 sleep study because of Covid. So glad they’ve finally caught up with reality. |
| Wed 15 | Hurry, hurry, hurry … we’ve just realised we need the website updated … today! |
| Thu 16 | Spent most of the day horizontal. Too dizzy in the head for vertical hold to engage properly. |
| Fri 17 | Vertical hold working intermittently today, which is an improvement. But still not good. |
| Sat 18 | What happened there? Awake-ish at 0600 with a purring, upside-down, cat for company. Next I know it’s 12 noon! But at least vertical hold is restored if not full functionality. |
| Sun 19 | Got some British apples in the supermarket delivery this week – and so I should think at this time of year! Suffolk Pink (a fairly new and unusual variety) and Worcester. The Worcester were good, quite sweet but not over juicy. The Suffolk Pink, although more tart were juicier and crunchier which I prefer. |
| Mon 20 | A day of fiddling about and catching up. Really fed up with the depression and inability to do anything. |
| Tue 21 | Picked almost 3kg runner beans. Sadly they’ve been rather neglected so many are over grown and very stringy. But 4x 200+gm packs frozen. The rest stripped for the beans inside which gave another 600-ish gm. |
| Wed 22 | Put some of the beans salvaged yesterday from our overgrown runners, in tonight’s casserole. And they were good. We Brits are apparently the only ones who eat the pods; everyone else grows them for the beans – and I quite see why! |
| Thu 23 | A voyage of discovery trying to understand how to create flipbooks for websites without having to pay for someone else’s cloud storage. |
| Fri 24 | Flu jabs are go! Invitation by text from GP. Booked in for next week. |
| Sat 25 | That’s another acquaintance gone: Lord Gowrie who was President of the Anthony Powell Society. Former Minister for the Arts. Erudite, knowledgeable, and always friendly. |
| Sun 26 | It could almost be Christmas: roast duck followed by biscuits and cheese (with red wine and port, of course). |
| Mon 27 | Awoke early to belting rain, half a gale and Stygian gloom. A lovely sunny day by lunchtime, if still breezy. |
| Tue 28 | Time to remove a bird’s nest amount of hair from my head. N doesn’t like it this short, but it’s a lot more comfortable and I can do it myself (with N’s assist). |
| Wed 29 | It’s flu jab day, today! Let’s see if it knocks me out this year – like it does most years for a day or so. |
| Thu 30 | Picked another 28 big red ripe chillies from the plants on the study windowsill. That’s 92 so far this summer, and there’s more to come; we should make well over 100. Almost all have gone in the freezer; they should keep us going for years!  Chillies on the bush a couple of days ago (left) and today’s harvest. |
