Eh, three days have gone past. To think that I used to post every day, without fail. Catching up…

I was reminded on Tuesday that there was a meeting planned for Wednesday – the reminder politely didn’t mention that I, as the secretary of the committee, should have sent out the paperwork last week. I simply hadn’t put it in my diary because I’d written it on the minutes of the last meeting instead. No matter. There are two meetings a year and we always have the same agenda for Meeting One and Meeting Two.

Offered a Zoom meeting, the one with furthest to travel said that he’d had too many of those and would like to meet in person. It has to be said that you get extra things done face-to-face. Though not having to leave the house is nice too. Anyway, it was a 200 metre walk to the meeting and a bit longer back, because I discussed hedge trimming with the Rector, so walked back to his place.

This morning I drove Wink to the next town, because she had a hospital appointment there – just for an eye checkup, no illness or anything. She had drops dripped in, so couldn’t drive herself. The specialist wanted her to have another eye test at the optician and she has been given one tomorrow. So, a jolly to Norwich. That is, not jolly for her, but I’ll spend my time at the market, maybe buying books at Jarrolds too. Things that used to be normal are now such a treat.

There’s an acre of land around the house, not counting fields, and much of it is grass. We dutifully leave it to give wild flowers a chance, but it rained when it should have been cut and now the grass is waist high. So I started cutting it with the wheeled strimmer (this has probably got a ‘proper’ name, but it’ll do). Admittedly it was a warm and muggy day, but I was panting after ten minutes. I managed another ten later, but there’s a long way to go. Meanwhile, Wince was constructing another tunnel for the chickens, so that they can have a third outside area. One chicken got out when we removed the pane of glass, ready to insert the tunnel. She had a lovely hour pecking around outside and then she wanted to go home. It was Hen Rietta or Hen Leigh, I can’t remember which is which. We opened the door of the run for her. She tried for some time to get through the wire, but eventually I poked a stick at her and guided her to the doorway. Not long afterwards, the heavens opened. Apparently, there were flash floods on the main roads round about. It bucketed down for an hour and I was very thankful that poor little Rietta (or Leigh) was safely indoors by that time.

I picked some swiss chard to go with the casserole for dinner. I noticed a black leafy thing on one of the leaves I’d picked. It was actually a butterfly, wings closed, that had sheltered from the rain. I picked it up and put it under a growing leaf, feeling very mean to have disturbed it.

Tomorrow, Wink is coming for breakfast, because Friday is Croissant Breakfast. I started ordering croissants from the milkman on a Friday because it didn’t seem fair to ask him to come all the way down the drive for one pint of milk, so I added butter, croissants and orange juice to the order. Now, the milkman no longer supplies croissants (and I now use a different milkman anyway, who doesn’t either, but that’s another story). So we buy them. I can see that the time will come when I make croissants, but it still seems a bit too much like work, so I don’t do it yet. But it’s still Croissant Friday.