Wince the gardener was around early, to explain that he couldn’t come today as there was an emergency. His girlfriend, whom he doesn’t live with so couldn’t help at the time, had fallen and hurt her hip, was taken to hospital last night and he was visiting her this morning. So the grass will continue to look as shaggy as my hair does, and that’s completely unimportant under the circumstances.

My hairdresser put a post up on Facebook to explain that the staff are phoning all the customers to book appointments, in order of those that have been cancelled, followed by those who’ve contacted them since. My haircut was at the end of February and the next was booked for early April. So others will come first and that’s fine. I really don’t mind at all. I’ll go full Woodstock (peace, man, make love not war) if need be, I’m enjoying having hair that’s officially long enough for a ponytail.

Rose had a vacuum cleaner especially for the woodburner. It clears out the ashes and has a filter that’s so efficient that it sucks up dust and lets none out. She doesn’t need it in her present house, so left it for us. I used it today and it is brilliant. A revelation. That is, after I’d got over having put the pipe in the wrong place, so that it blew instead of sucked. That did actually suck, paradoxically, and it was just as well that I’d started on a bit of dust at the corner rather than actually in the grate.

After that, I dusted and hoovered and shifted furniture like a mad thing, with the result that my back has ached for the rest of the day. I’m being careful now so it’ll be fine.

Tomorrow, I’ve no idea what we will do. It’s been a busy week and I think we should be a bit jolly.