The words “free time” should have been taken with a pinch of salt, or possibly a hollow laugh. It’s not that I have had no spare time, just not enough to focus on one thing for a few hours. I really must try to do better, but things crop up.

I rubbed down a garden bench and repainted it with wood preservative, intending to have it in the porch with overwintering plants on top, planning two or possibly three tiers of plants (the staging I used to have finally rotted away, a few years ago). But it’s too big to leave comfortable room for everything else in there – that is, it fits where I’d planned for it, it just looks too big. Unfortunately, the small conservatory that doubled as a back porch was removed and incorporated into a new room when we moved here and the other porch – it’s a fair sized room, in fact – is used as the general entrance (not many people come to the front door and fewer to the back door) as well as my bike store, where I keep one of the chest freezers, a small table where I often have lunch in summer, another garden bench and a couple of chairs. And a few tools and other things, including a log basket – it’s a Victorian mahogany object, my mother used to keep magazines and so on in it, it’s the size of a baby’s cradle, but I’m fairly sure that wasn’t its original purpose as I think it would have rockers, if so. Anyway, it’s useful to have logs in, to save me opening the front door when it’s cold or wet (we stack logs in the open porch) – and scuttles of coal. I’m aware that I have far more space here than I actually need, it’s just that the space I have isn’t the specific space that I sometimes want. But there. I have, at least, brought in the houseplants that have summered outside, as it’s due to be cold this weekend.

I decided to let my heart rule my head yesterday and bought myself a present. It’s being posted to me and the craftsperson is away from his studio this weekend, so it won’t arrive for another week. I’ll post a photo when it arrives.

I finally drafted a press release and sent it to the local paper, so hope it’ll be taken up. I’m rubbish at publicity, I find it harder than anything else.