I’m spending less on most things except food, so there’s money to spare for extras. That’s going in two directions: good causes and local businesses. I’m choosing a couple of charities a week and also buying expansively from companies that are doing their best to keep going in difficult times. At this time of year, it includes plant nurseries, whose voices light up now when they hear me on the phone. It’s – send me £40sworth of bedding plants, a dozen pelargoniums, compost, this, that, t’other… and you’ve got my address from last time. And -ooh, I like the sound of your houseplant offer, please send me £20sworth of your choice. I’ve just put in an order to the local brewery – very local, young Andy was at school with Ronan – and I’ve spent more on beer than I thought I’d do without treating a pubful.

I find, on the whole, that I alternate up and down days. I’m fairly gung ho about the downs. Yesterday was one of them, so I proposed opening a bottle of prosecco at lunchtime. It helped but I dipped later and had to spend the rest of the day pretending to myself that I wasn’t miserable. But I’ve been okay today and there’s no reason for any of it.

My mother was ill for several years before she died, which I’ve never written about because I haven’t wanted to relive it. But she did have good times and she’d become very hopeful, followed by massive despondency when she wasn’t well again. Being annoyingly sensible, I recognised that she tended to rush out and overdo it on the good days and exhausted herself and, also, that there’s a natural ebb and flow about these things. So I advocated taking the situation day by day. Appreciate what you have today but don’t make an assumption about tomorrow or, conversely, recognise that this day will pass and tomorrow will be better. But she resisted. She had to hope the good day would lead to a bright future – and that she was disappointed came as a fresh shock each time.

She did appreciate the good days in the end, once she’d been diagnosed with a terminal illness, but when palliative care gave her amazingly good apparent health for a while. She enjoyed those last six months so much, just as they were. After she died, I was very low for several years and, on my way back up, I found that I had to appreciate every single thing that gave me joy. Blogging, which I started during this time, helped so much and is probably part of the reason I’m so attached to it, when many people just remember it nostalgically.

As so often, i had no idea I was going to write this when I started. I thought I was writing about the garden. Another time, darlings.

The best time of the food year has started. The strawberries and asparagus are full-flavoured now, there are local new potatoes and Simon Greengrocer mentioned that there are some wonderful local Cos lettuce coming in now. We have some lettuce in the garden but I’m only taking off individual leaves for a modest salad and a proper Cos is a delicious lettuce.

I should reread Pliny’s letters. There’s one where he reproaches a young man for not turning up at his dinner party and he says what he missed. Dinner included a whole lettuce each! And the after-dinner entertainment was Pliny himself reading his own works. The young man preferred the excitement of fashionable food and dancing girls, which did him no good at all in the long run, said the great man.

Anyway, such was my excitement on picking up my veg order yesterday that I suggested a mostly vegetable weekend. Last night, we had the last couple of rashers of bacon with roasted carrots and sweet potato, new potatoes and asparagus. With a blob of butter, that was it. Tonight, there will be a salad Niçoise with more asparagus, potatoes, tomatoes, olives, cucumber, lettuce and tuna and tomorrow we’ll have asparagus risotto. Not sure of tomorrow’s lunch yet but it may well be cabbage soup or stuffed cabbage because – well, I think the reason is obvious. And I’m scoffing strawberries as I type.

Businesses are going to be struggling, obviously, for a long time and it’s sure that there will be a lot that will go under. Personal finance seems to be another matter. Although many people’s income is reduced, they are spending far less and, apparently, using the time to pay off credit card debt and overdrafts. And so much less electricity is being used that there has been an application made to turn off wind turbines feeding into the national supply next Bank Holiday Monday as they expect usage to be so low.

Tim and I each bought a copy of the final part of the Mantel trilogy on Thomas Cromwell. We’ve both been reading slowly, not wanting to get to the end in a hurry. However, I finally did finish last night and Tim decided to wait until today for the last fifty pages. Although reading slowly, which I don’t normally do, made it a heavier read, in that it was less easy to keep track of the characters – and it’s certainly a physically heavy book – we’ve enjoyed it immensely and I think I’m going to have to go back and read the entire trilogy again. I’ve got a few more books to catch up on first, though.

This is the ninth anniversary of our first ever Blog Party. That was quite a day. Many of you have come to most of them and a few stalwarts have made it to them all. Thank you for your friendship, everyone. I hope to meet more of you when times are better.