I was out of the house by 7.30 on Friday morning, which is pretty smartly off the mark for me nowadays, I normally potter around quite relaxedly first thing, even though I usually wake fairly early.  I don’t know why I wake early, I don’t generally need to.  The train arrived on time and we reached London a few minutes early and I took a bus to Trafalgar Square to meet Eddie Two-Sox.

We both really enjoyed the exhibition, which is on at the National Gallery until the end of May.  I was taken out to lunch and we chatted for a long time – we haven’t seen each other for ages, at least a couple of years.  I had time in hand, so went with him to King’s Cross for his train and then I followed the sign for the buses – which just took me outside, there was no sign of any buses.  I looked for quite some time before finding them, really poor signage.

I’d thought I might get out at Angel to go and look at my flats, but I couldn’t be bothered in the end.  I knew neither of my tenants would be home from work yet and there didn’t seem much point.  I went on to the station and read until it was time for my train.

I was thinking I hadn’t been to London since Russell died but, as I sat down, I felt a sadness that there was no one at home to phone, to say I’d caught it.  We always rang each other from the station.  But I was sure I’d had that feeling before.  Writing this, I’ve just searched my phone calendar and I did go, on 15th October.  I can’t remember why – thank goodness for a blog, I can check.

Of course, how could I have forgotten? I went to meet Lena (Elle), visiting from Berlin.

Anyway, I’d bought salads, wine and some chocolate raisins from M&S, but I hadn’t got anything to eat with or drink out of, except a coffee carton.  So I poured a modicum of wine in that and found I’d got a wooden stirrer in my bag, which I broke in half to use as chopsticks. I’d have gone along to the buffet to get something, but it was closed because of a power cut in coach H.  It was just as well, too, that I hadn’t forked out the extra for an earlier train, because we drifted along slowly after a while.  Apparently there had been a breakdown at Ipswich so earlier trains had been held at Colchester and there was a queue.  We didn’t actually stop, it had been cleared by the time we came along but we had to go slowly while the earlier trains dispersed, but if I had been on an earlier train I’d have been delayed a good deal.

Today, I spent a couple of hours in the greenhouse potting up seedlings.  I’ve been hoping to find frog spawn in the pond but no luck yet – there’s none in the beck either, I find.  The grass isn’t growing much yet on the fields, so we won’t have cows brought for a while.

I need to make a list of jobs to do outside.  Not gardening so much, that tends to be obvious.  But there’s still a lot of clearing to be done.  I’ve got a tumbledown stable, hen house and tennis court hut to be dismantled and put on the bonfire, for a start.  I wonder what sort of flooring the hut has – I haven’t been in there for years and the roof has caved in.  But it might be the basis for a wood store.