I bought 200 metres of horticultural fleece.  I wanted to warm up the soil and also to prevent pigeons eating my seedlings.  So today, we sowed pea seeds – I suppose I could say, we sowed peas – and broad beans and covered them over.  I also sowed some radishes and we’ve covered the spinach and swiss chard that have overwintered – they shoot again in the spring and, by the time they’ve gone to seed, the new crop will be almost ready to be picked over.

And then, because this is a day off, I took LT out for lunch at one of our favourite places in the town.  Quite possibly our actual favourite, in fact, the place where we took guests who were already in town to to our wedding-eve dinner.  After that, I bought a very good walnut and coffee cake from the deli and we visited our friends Mary and Peter.  Mary broke her pelvis skiing a couple of weeks ago and is still on crutches.  I know it was a good cake because Peter made tea and we ate some.  Clearly, I’m the type of person who takes someone grapes in hospital and then helps myself.

We are gradually training Eloise cat.  Obviously, the way to do that is by making her think that she is training us and rewards are involved.  But she jumps up onto her chair at the dining table when it is patted and waits for her share.  Tonight, we’re having smoked haddock, so I’m not sure if she will like it.  I have stopped putting down a water bowl for her in the kitchen as she never drank from it, preferring her glass on LT’s bedside table.  There happened to be a jar of water on the coffee table in the drawing room, which I’d given Zerlina for some art work she was doing – it was clean water, not painty.  And Eloise clearly thought I’d put it there for her, so I filled it.  Now, she drinks from it and approves.  This makes all three of us perfectly happy.