I paid three insurance policies today – nearly £1200 that I hope is money down the drain, i.e. that I won’t have to call on them.  It was a frustrating and long drawn out experience that I won’t bore you with and I had a headache by the end.  So the day had to get better and it did.

• I hardboiled some eggs and LT made a lovely salad for lunch.
• I made celery soup.
• The peas, broad beans and radishes are all up.
• We planted early potatoes – outside, that is.  I planted them in bags in the greenhouse a couple of weeks ago.
• The bantams were more cheerful today than they’ve been for ages.  They must finally be over the shock of the dog attack and they’re ready for spring.  They’re laying three or four eggs a day, which is quite a lot to keep up with, though at least they’re small eggs.  I’d whizzed up some heels of cheese with bread in the food processor for them and they were very pleased.
• The outdoor cats are catching their own food and I rarely see them except for Freddie, who comes to be friendly.  But this evening, Barney and Betty were there too, so I was pleased.

Now I only take one newspaper a day – sadly, the local daily, which has always been excellent, isn’t any longer.  I tried for several weeks after its revamp, but it’s unreadable.  I still take the very local weekly, which has adopted the same editorial policy,  and I will give you an example of a headline on page 3 – Campaign for 30mph speed limit on bendy stretch of road through centre of village.  There was a sub-heading – Villagers are campaigning for speed reductions on a bendy stretch of a Suffolk Road.  The article itself repeated the same information, just adding the village’s name and a few quotes.  It’s bemusingly badly written, it must be driving the good journalists to distraction, assuming there are still some of them there.