The weekend was good, actually. The Rector’s leaving party (one of six), supposedly a pre-lunch drink, went on until 6.20 and the last half-bottle of red wine (another half hour and I’d have had to open the good stuff or persuade them on to the white) after which I went to sleep on the sofa. The Rector himself had friends round for dinner, otherwise I think he’d have done the same (his own sofa, mine was full of me). Today I have been to church twice, which does not imply particular wickedness in the past week, but simply that this sort of malarkey can sometimes be the lot of the churchwarden. I did get to the pub afterwards and talked to a nice bloke who used to be a professional clarinettist and now makes clocks. I’m sure there are comments to make about keeping time there, but I’m not the woman to make them.

I play the clarinet myself, mostly jazz and Mozart. And the organ and piano, but I am not in the least a musician. A dilettante in all things; I dabble and like it.

I’ve got the winter olympics on in the background. So much of it is really dull; sorry, but the only reason to watch speed skating is for the moment when someone goes arse over tip and brings the rest of them down. And curling – not happening yet but bound to – is so toe-curlingly dull, even the terminology, skip and stone and all that, puts one to sleep. Skiing has its moments, but it’s all against the clock and that will never give the thrill of a proper race; ditto bobsleigh and, well, everything. Except ice hockey and that’s scary. Great Britain hopes to win a medal. Any medal, we don’t mind which colour or which event. That’s so sweetly unassuming.

I think I’m getting a new car tomorrow. Cars are useful rather than important to me (I really like Morris Minors best) and so the fact that it works and is reasonably comfortable is all that matters. However, I asked intelligent questions of my husband, whose friends are selling it – what cc; is it saloon, estate or hatchback; automatic or manual; petrol or diesel. Finally, what colour – silver. And the mileage is 15,000 miles in three years. So I know two things about it. It’ll be fine.

The good thing is that I did major Housework on Friday in preparation for the party, so now large chunks of house are pristine and won’t need doing again for ages. This is not a mucky house, just cobwebby as it is old and has exposed beams all over the place which spiders love. I don’t mind that at all, but somehow a lot of woodlice get in; dear little creatures that are stoical and comical and quite endearing. I rarely see one alive; occasionally one drops from the ceiling and trundles across the carpet but they do get entangled in spiders’ webs and one hoovers up quantities of desiccated ones. They curl up sideways like a trilobite when their juices are sucked out and I think that if I sprayed a few with varnish and left them for a couple of years I could convince anyone that I had a houseful of fossils.