| Thu 1 | Why does one wake up at 05:20? It was clear and starry – well as starry as it gets round here for the light pollution. And why is one still awake at 06:15? I got up, knowing I’d feel smacked on the head later; but knowing if I resumed slumber I’d sleep the morning away and feel smacked on the head anyway. So I figured I’d may as well do something useful. |
| Fri 2 | Two interesting calls with my GP today. Piecing together all sorts of things, she now thinks I didn’t have cellulitis back in October (and of which I still have the remnants), but Erythema Nodosum – which I had as a kid. It all fits, but of course is one of those things which is going to be hard to prove. Luckily she’s actually finding this very interesting – as am I. |
| Sat 3 | Meh! A pretty meh day – grey cold and miserable, so no wonder that’s how I felt. Gave up and retired early to bed to read and try to relax. |
| Sun 4 | Spent the day clearing up the house – and made absolutely no impression on the accumulated silt of 40+ years. Consoled ourselves with roast guinea fowl & roast veg, washed down with a lovely bottle of Greek white, and followed by still warm from the oven apple crumble and cream. |
| Mon 5 | Cometh the gardener. Cometh the pond man to do a winter clean and check over. Remaineth the depression and the work. |
| Tue 6 | Good chat with our lovely GP this morning, mostly about advance care planning, but also checking on my not-cellulitis. But unfortunately (for us) she’s going off on maternity leave next week; she promises to return, but small people do have a habit of changing priorities. |
| Wed 7 | 04:30. Bright silvery full moon behind a veil of gossamer cloud skidding across the sky going south. Really pretty and enjoyed for 5 minutes after a trip to the bathroom. |
| Thu 8 | Wow! What a wonderful hard frost; the first of the year I think. Everything is covered in white, and looks really pretty – especially when followed by a glorious sunny morning. Just a shame it’ll have knocked back all the plants. |
| Fri 9 | Had an excellent bottle of more expensive Domaine Maby Libiamo Tavel with dinner; like a really good, full-bodied, Chablis or Macon with a hint of red summer fruits. It went especially well with prawns & mushroom in tomato sauce with linguine. Followed by alcoholic fruit salad. Hic! |
| Sat 10 | Another lovely moonlit night with a heavy frost, followed by an sunny alpine day. It looks beautiful, but it’s bitterly cold. Mind the sunshine does wonders for the mood. |
| Sun 11 | Blimey! What a wonderful hard frost. Everything covered in rime. And today a nice little fog to go with it – not thick, but enough to hold the temperature down. I probably have seen harder frosts, but this must be up there with them. And it didn’t obviously get above freezing all day.
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| Mon 12 | Snow! Late yesterday evening, suddenly there was a decent covering of snow; not a lot, maybe 2cm at most. Although initially it looked pretty, it’s been above freezing for some of the day so the snow is clearing, and the bird bath wasn’t frozen solid. |
| Tue 13 | Oh the fun of taking 3 cats to the vet for their annual jabs & check-up. Always take them fasting in case the vet wants blood from any of them. “But why can’t we have breakfast? We’re hungry kittens.” And then round them up to basket them; you’ll never make a sheepdog! You can always get one. The second, not so easy as she slips past and is hidden – but found. Meanwhile number 3 has become invisible. The house is searched from top to bottom and she’s eventually found in the depths of the shoe cupboard. After that they all three get a clean bill of health despite putting on weight and the vet removes a rather obese monkey from one’s pocket. |
| Wed 14 | A day of … what exactly? Getting little done and the AP Soc online talk this evening cancelled as the speaker is indisposed. |
| Thu 15 | Another day of doing bits and pieces. They have to be done, but it always feels so unproductive. But at least I did cook tea. Mind the cats have it right; they’ve spent the day nested, like Queen Cat.
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| Fri 16 | No wonder our bedroom has been unusually cold. Noreen realised someone had turned the radiator off. And it wasn’t either of us! Fingers of suspicion are pointing elsewhere. At the same time I discovered the study radiator needs bleeding, but I cannot budge the bleed valve. For that I definitely blame the guy who serviced the heating at the end of May. |
| Sat 17 | Another good Anthony Powell Society social call over Zoom, with a select group from UK and US. What was supposed to be an hour turned into 1¾ hours. Not just an opportunity to chat, but also to raise a glass in Powell’s memory as it’s his birthday in fours days time. |
| Sun 18 | I’ve had a trail camera trained on the garden, timed to work overnight, for the last 3+ years. I unload the memory card most Sundays – it’s usually a sequence of cats and foxes, with the odd squirrel and pigeon at dawn. But for the first time when checking this week’s stills I had 3 shots of a rodent: a rat scurrying across the upper lawn about 2½m from the camera. Luckily there was no cat or fox around at the time. |
| Mon 19 | Rain! We have rain. And wind. And it’s warmer. All the snow is gone, finally. It’s grey; dark; depressing. But we have rain. We need rain. |
| Tue 20 | Started late, but still managed to make leftovers soup in time for lunch. Stock from the end of the lamb casserole and an end of pasta (tomato) sauce. Augmented with onion, garlic, mushrooms and cooking tomatoes. Plus seasoning, sherry and cream. Not fine dining but it went down warmingly well with chunks of bread. |
| Wed 21 | Good to see a couple of friends over the last few days. It’s feeling odd now to have to be worrying about shielding, wearing masks etc., but I’m still at high risk and probably a good candidate for Long Covid – so I’m continuing to be careful. But how I wish it were not thus. |
| Thu 22 | Christmas supermarket delivery this morning, with an earlier slot than our usual which threw out the internal clocks somewhat. Amazingly they got everything right, bar the odd couple of substitutions, and that our Christmas pork and large “free range” chicken both came up on the small side – adequate, but small. Oh and I ordered 1kg of banana shallots, but was sent 2.5kg! I don’t have a problem with this, though it would have been better if I’d not been charged for the extra! But, Duh! |
| Fri 23 | Spent a chunk of the afternoon and evening catching up on writing letters and emails to family and friends. I’m the world’s worst correspondent; if I don’t reply to an email or letter almost immediately it sinks to the bottom of the ocean, never to resurface: I still have one email outstanding from this time last year! The job’s not yet finished, but I’ve broken the back of it, I hope. |
| Sat 24 | A day of odds and sods jobs pre-Christmas – although it doesn’t feel very Christmas-y. I finished all the email writing; just my three “girl” cousins on my mother’s side to go, and that has to be letters, so no point rushing for a few days. I also cooked dinner: the chicken which I spatchcocked and roast with lots of lemon (juice & zest), tarragon, garlic, butter and brandy. Yummy! |
| Sun 25 | Christmas Day. On our own as usual, so we can please ourselves. I was awake and up at a sensible hour (08:30), Noreen surfaced about 90 minutes later. Did nothing until lunch of smoked salmon & cream cheese rolls, washed down with large G&T. Presents in the afternoon included a couple of IOUs for things that hadn’t arrived in the post. Then roast pork, garlic roast potatoes, roast Jerusalem artichokes; sprouts & fennel; stuffing; apple sauce for dinner – this time washed down with a bottle of Champagne. Followed by total lethargy. ZZzzzzz. |
| Mon 26 | Traditional Boxing Day lunch of cold meat, mashed potato, bubble & squeak, pickle. Washed down with a beer. And still we haven’t attacked a Christmas Pudding! |
| Tue 27 | Typical British Bank Holiday weather: cold, grey, windy and damp. So a day largely spent “jellivating”** in between a few odd jobs. |
| Wed 28 | It is November, isn’t it? It’s dark grey, peeing with rain, blowing half a gale, and not very warm. The end of December isn’t usually as dismal as this. Pull up the drawbridge, throw another peasant on the fire, and break open the Christmas Pudding. |
| Thu 29 | This day in 1170 saw the assassination of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in his own cathedral. Formerly Lord Chancellor, Becket was made archbishop in 1162 despite not already being an ordained priest. Putting the church before the state be became a thorn in the side of Henry II, and spent 6 years exiled in France. He was canonised, as a martyr, in February 1173. Thomas Becket is my patron saint. |
| Fri 30 | There’s a UNICEF advert running on the Smithsonian channel at the moment. It states that a £10 donation could provide live-saving food for a child (by implication in a third world country) for a week. Wouldn’t it be a fucking good idea if we ensured all the kids in this country were properly fed and nourished first? Government: note and action. |
| Sat 31 | The year ends grey, windy and wet. A fitting end, and good riddance, to a fairly crap year. 2023 has to be better, or I suspect the whole country is going to go stark raving squirrelled.^^ |
** Jellivate (v). To sit around like a lump of mindless jelly, doing nothing and with no inclination to do anything; thumb in bum and mind in neutral.
^^ As in that memorable line from Steptoe and Son: “My old man’s a nutter; he’s gone squirrelled”.
How much do you know about your insides? Most of us have an idea of how our bodies work; for some it is fairly sketchy, but for others there’s a bit more detail. But unless you’re a medic you’re unlikely to understand the minutiae and you need an anatomist to point out the nooks, crannies and curiosities.
Naturally enough Boston concentrates on France, with Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal all getting their own chapters. There is then a chapter on sparkling wines; another on pudding wines; and notes about other countries in a further chapter. I found this slightly puzzling: why give Austria and Switzerland their own chapters, but not Greece, which in my limited experience has equally as many, and as good, wines? For me, Italy and Spain produce just a much good wine as France (which still produces the very top-most wines), with the added bonus that it is usually slightly cheaper.