They do it to keep us on our toes, I’m sure of it. I’d resigned myself to the death of one of the black barn cats. It was so long since he’d been to be fed, I thought he must have been run over on the road. Although I couldn’t be sure that it was always the same black boy coming as I can’t tell them apart, it’s rare for more than two or three days to go by without them all turning up.

And then, this morning, they were all there. Just the same as usual, neither boy looking unwell or hungry or anything. So they were just being bloody cats.

The rain has been warmer today, so I did the weeding that needed to be done. I’ve got All the Veg, but two sorts of kale, spinach, Swiss chard and two sorts of lettuces need to be covered against chicken attack. Fleece is better than netting because plants don’t get entangled in it; but the chickens can peck through it and they ate a lot of my spinach after destroying the fleece. I’ve weeded and covered and am thinking again about a polytunnel, not so much for greenhouse purposes but as anti-chicken defence. But there is no rush and I had good advice a while ago, and will consider options.

Rose is moving out tomorrow, though she’ll be going back and forwards for a while to sort everything out. Wink is very happy at the prospect of moving in. We’ve discussed a checklist of what needs to be done in the meantime and she will visit for a week or two at a time until her official move.

It’s young Rufus’s birthday on Tuesday and he will be four. His parents hope that his nursery will open before too long so that he can see his friends again, because most of them are going to different schools in September. His parents wanted to buy him a bike and the one they chose was a nice one; ie expensive, so I offered to go halves, rather than buy yet another toy. We are meeting up at a local park on Tuesday and then it’s cautious open garden next Saturday, on the understanding that people don’t stay long so that there aren’t more than is appropriate at any one time. They have a decent sized garden with a separate gate so you don’t have to go through the house. It all seems over-cautious in one sense, because this part of the country has never been badly affected, but absolutely correct in another and we are conditioned to take no unnecessary risks.

All the same, a lot of people, including me and, to a lesser extent LT, were ill in the winter with a virus that we had never experienced before. We can’t help wondering if the bug was around and infecting people long before it was recognised, and only later changed into something that was a killer. I don’t know, but I do know that I was more ill in December than I’d been for over 25 years, and I had some symptoms that I’ve never had before and were those described by present-day sufferers. I’ve been that ill 4 times in my life over a space of 54 years, two of them being flu and one a chest infection, and this was different.

Rose’s cat Rummy came to be fed with the barn cats and I made a fuss of him. After breakfast tomorrow, he won’t do it again and he has no idea yet. He’s an alley cat at heart and, though he is pretty friendly on the whole, it’s only Rose that he loves. He does enjoy joining us for lunch, though, especially if there’s ham or cheddar on offer. I know what to take him as a present when I visit in future.

Scrabble does indeed have six chicks and all is well with them. The coop has a layer of straw on dry earth, so Scrabble is scratching around a good deal, mostly kicking stuff into their food and water. Still, they’re warmer than they would be in the other coop, so they’ll stay there for the time being. The weather has been horrible again today – a lot of places have had hailstorms and we’ve lit the fire for the second day. I’m just glad I didn’t turn the Aga off, once the annual service had been done, on the last day of the heatwave.

The vegetables have appreciated the rain, however, and have grown hugely in just a couple of days. As soon as it’s dry, I must do the weeding, then cover them over again before I let the chickens out. They’ve been better off indoors for a couple of days, they’d only have skulked under a hedge or in the Dutch barn.

I’m very sad to say that one of the barn cats has been missing for about a week now. There are three of them nowadays – I’m sure that the very loving mother and the friendly tabby have found new homes, and that the old father tom RasPutin died over the winter, because I haven’t seen him for about nine months – but the three remaining ones, two boys and a girl, visited most days. They are timid and never would be anything but feral, but they are also friendly and never aggressive.

One day, none of them came for breakfast or tea, which is unusual but not that rare. They didn’t come for breakfast the next day either and only the female came that evening and she was nervous. Since then, there has just been the girl, who has white paws and bib, and one boy. I have never been able to tell the boys apart from their appearance, though one is more timid than the other. So I can’t be sure that it’s always the same boy but, as time goes by, it seems less likely that the third will return. There have never been more than a few days when they haven’t all come to be fed, in more than five years. I checked the barn where they sleep, in case he’d been injured and crawled back, but no sign and I’m sure he isn’t in another barn because we haven’t opened any doors unless we’ve done so regularly. They’re too timid to follow us in anyway.

I have the feeling that Polly Garter’s single chick is a girl. I can’t be sure, but the neat roundness of her tail and end of back feathers looks right. Don’t know yet about the three chicks of Foster, they’re smaller and she’s so protective that I haven’t really seen them very clearly.

It occurred to me today that, once all *this* has passed over and we start to return to our former lives – assuming that does happen – we will have a lot of eating out to do. For a start, there’s lovely Old Hall Farm, from where we have been getting our Friday night takeaways and our occasional shopping for meat, yeast and flour. We can’t neglect their normal restaurant. There are also other local places that have had to close for the duration, but which we will want to show support. In addition, the food shops that have looked after us so wonderfully for the past three months must not be neglected, so eating in will have to happen too.

We lit a fire this evening. Just a few sticks and logs, but it has cheered the room. It was very chilly today with a driving wind and sudden rain squalls, and I was glad i hadn’t moved Scrabble and her brood into a more exposed coop. As it was, I draped an old sheet across the corner of the coop they’re in, as a windbreak. All were tucked underneath her this evening, so I just topped up food and water and didn’t investigate. I’ll measure up in the next day or so, to see if it might be possible to move that coop into a more suitable place and avoid having to catch and upset them all.

We had, probably, our last family Zoom chat this afternoon. The likelihood is that everyone will have seen everyone else in the next week or so, except Wink who is coming up on the 21st. She will be based in the annexe so will still be living at a legal distance, assuming rules haven’t changed markedly by then. That government members don’t think any sort of rules, laws or sensible advice applies to them does not mean that we’re as unwise as they are.

Scrabble’s chicks have hatched. I think she has six, but I’m not investigating too far at present. I went to feed the cats this morning and peeped through a gap in the coop where a plank has slipped, and could see some babies. So I went to fetch a box and ask Tim for help, then set up food, water and grit in the run and we went back to the coop (which is under cover in the Dutch barn, very safe and comfortable but not suitable long term) to fetch the family. Scrabble was sitting, all her brood beneath her. I’d seen four chicks, I thought, but perhaps there were more still hatching and moving them now could be a mistake. So I replenished food for Scrabble and chicks as well as water for all and we left them.

It was chill and windy later, so I decided another day or two under cover would do no harm. Scrabble looks devoted to her babies and it’s not cold and they are safe.

Wince works so hard, it’s unbelievable. He’s weeded the entire bed on the kitchen garden side of The Wall – it’s incredibly dry. Sedums were wilting. Rain was forecast as a possibility and it must have rained somewhere, because it was in the air – putting me off painting – but it remained dry apart from a few desultory drops in the early evening. Wince also found time to cut back weeds on the path to the back door, so we don’t have to fight our way past any more.

None of this is the news. The bad news will have to come before the good, because that’s the order in which things will happen. Rose has decided it’s time to branch out and leave the Zedery annexe. She’s a decisive woman and it’s all happened quite quickly, once lettings were allowed by our astonishing government, and she moves on Monday. Her Boy and his Girl have already moved out – peculiarly, since he’s enjoyed my hospitality for several years at no charge, he didn’t come to say goodbye, but there’s the young for you. Rose and I, on the other hand, had an illicit hug, with averted faces. We couldn’t not.

So this is the end of a lovely time. For nearly six years, we’ve supported each other and it’s a wonderful friendship that I treasure. We will still be friends, of course, there’s no change there.

The annexe would be empty, however. We didn’t want to rent it out to anyone as it’s part of our home. But we don’t really want to leave it empty, which seems wrong. I suggested that perhaps my sister Wink would like to have it as a holiday home? And then things fell into place. Maybe she would like to move here. At once, this felt right and happy. Tim felt so too and, if he hadn’t, the suggestion would not have progressed. But we wholeheartedly agreed and, when I phoned Wink to ask, she said yes as well. We are so excited.

Her original intention had been to move to Norwich once she retired, but we all feel this is better. The whole family is looking forward to her coming back to us. She is visiting later this month, which will also give her the chance to meet baby Perdita for the first time and we hope to make arrangements then.

I had an email from my dentist this afternoon. Dentists are permitted by the government to open from next Monday, under strict conditions. My dentist explained that neither the opening nor the conditions were discussed with actual dentists in advance. They heard about it on the news like the rest of us.

The unprofessional lack of respect, courtesy and ability from the government reminded me of my dentist and doctor from childhood, in two respects. The dentist was a friend, though not a close one, of my parents. They met at the same parties, they had mutual friends, though they never visited each other’s houses. That level. Apparently – I don’t know if it’s true but it was what my mother said – he’d started as an army dentist and, basically, pulled out any teeth he couldn’t easily fix by drilling and filling. She was quite disparaging about him. Yet she sent her precious children to him. What? The pressure of social acquaintance, I suppose. Surely a specialist children’s dentist could have been found, or at least a better one? My dentist once remarked to me that I’ve got a surprising number of fillings, considering that I’ve got strong teeth and look after them well. I knew the reason.

I don’t much remember our original family doctor, whose name was David Boswell and whose son was called Charles and about my age. Very nice boy. I didn’t know him well but he was likeable. Dr Boswell retired to Aldeburgh and we had another doctor, who was a friend of my parents’ and he was old-fashioned, but not in a bad way. Good, solid and reliable and he delivered my son Alex at home, which shows trust on my part – however, there was a time when my sister felt under great personal stress and went to him for professional advice. Before she got home, he’d phoned to tell my mother about it. What? There was hell to pay, my mother was more furious that my sister’s personal problems had been shared than that she had them.

Well, anyway. What I’m getting at is that standards are higher now. Thank goodness for that. Mistakes are made and, unfortunately, lessons are not always learned because they are often covered up. But they’re rare and, if found out, investigated.

As for today, it’s been a lot cooler and we’ve cracked on well with the fence. C can’t come tomorrow and we’re busy on Friday with our Zoom chat with the family. So I might do some more or it might be left until next week.

I hooked some blanket weed out of the pond and dumped it next to the pond so that any creatures caught would be able to crawl back. But then it occurred to me that blanket weed is quite dense and they might get stuck, so I spent half an hour carefully going through it all and rescuing any live thing I found. That included two young newts and three newt tadpoles, just getting their legs. It lifted my heart, darlings. I love newts. They remind me of my childhood, which is a tale I have probably told you and I should resist anecdotage.

I’m not sure if I said, that Eloise cat’s knee is no better and the suspicion that it’s the cruciate ligaments has been deemed to be correct. An x-ray would confirm, but there’s no real point. Sebastian the vet and Tim and I all agree from experience. His is the greater and backed up by training, of course, but we had it happen last year. So he contacted the specialist vet, we had a phone call back and Eloise is booked in for Thursday of next week. In the meantime, she’s mostly caged but we let her out several times a day, either indoors or out. If she’s out, one of us follows her. She isn’t thrilled about that, but remains polite because she’s a sweet-natured cat.

It has been exhaustingly humid today, but we still got things done. Tim made a fabulous roasted tomato and butternut squash soup for dinner, I did some gardening and some paperwork and C and I spent another couple of hours painting the fence. We’re about a third of the way along now, maybe a little more. I’m tired out by the time we’ve finished but I think it’s the heat rather than the work.

Lovely fruit from Simon Greengrocer today, including nectarines, cherries, apricots and strawberries. This is a wonderful time of the year for fresh food, isn’t it?

Still no sign of chicks from Scrabble. I don’t know when she started sitting because I didn’t make a note of it, so I am not sure if she’s got much hope.

I could have asked for something at any time and would have been given it, or the money to buy it, but I never did. I was an undemanding child. Books were regularly bought, of course and I was uninterested in clothes whereas my mother loved them, so she tended to choose my clothes anyway. Sweets didn’t get bought, though ice cream did in the summer, so being given sweets or chocolate was a huge treat. I made them last a long time. As I had no money, occasional gifts of it were spent carefully, usually on presents, as were book tokens when I was of an age to buy presents for my family instead. It puzzles me now that no one seemed to notice that I produced a bought present when I had no money to buy it with. No one, rightly, would ever have thought I’d have stolen it.

Looking back, my sense of honour did become blurred once a year. It started when Pearson and I found a few coins down the back of an armchair. It would have been pennies, a thrupenny bit at most. If I’d told my mother we’d found it, she would have told us to keep it, there’s no question of that. But somehow, the secrecy became the point.

Pearson was my mother’s godson and he lived with his parents and sister Lyndal – I’m not sure how it was spelt – in Basingstoke. He was about my age and he came for several years to spend the summer holidays with us. I got on with him well. I didn’t play with dolls, which I thought were girly – the funny thing was that when any boys came round, they loved a dolls’ tea party and we had to make do with cuddly toys. I liked going to their houses because they had cars and trains.

Anyway, we found some money and then we found more pennies in a drawer of odds and ends. There was no question we’d look in a handbag, pocket or purse. It had to be lost money because that didn’t have an owner, and we’d go down to the village and spend it on sweets and biscuits on the day before Pearson was due to leave and we’d have a private feast. The fact that we bought that sort of food was the reason for the secrecy, of course, because it would have been met with disapproval.

By about the third year, we were running out of places to find the coins, but I suppose we were growing out of it by then anyway. I was about 12 the last time he came to stay.

My mother tended not to use cash anyway, because they had accounts at all the shops they used regularly. And if I was sent shopping, I just asked for it to be put on the account and breezed out with the goods. One could phone and the order would be delivered the same day.

Funnily enough, I just broke off from writing this a minute ago to answer the phone. It was the deli in Yagnub, where I emailed my order a couple of hours ago. I’ve emailed my greengrocer order too and I’ll pick both up tomorrow. I’ve gone back 50 years. The fishmonger called this morning and we bought crabs (Eloise cat was very pleased) and halibut. And I’ve ordered a case of wine and another case turned up the other day from our local vineyard as our annual benefit as members of their supporters’ club.

There are changes coming up at the Zedery, which I’ll tell you about in a week or so. In the meantime, C and I are going to spend a couple of hours painting the fence.