I needed new clothes. I haven’t bought any summer clothes for a few years – in fact, I’ve hardly bought any clothes since a big post-lockdown splurge when I wanted to support the local clothes shop. Wink and I took a trip to Norwich.

It was not a success, except for the very good pizzas we had for lunch. I trailed through Marks & Spencer in increasing dismay. Patterns were garish, garments were too long, sleeves didn’t exist on warm-weather clothes. Plenty of adequate teeshirts but, without anything to wear them with, I didn’t know what colours to buy. So we decided to head up the hill to John Lewis and see what we could find there. It was much the same, but more expensive. The one dress I quite liked was £165 and I didn’t like it that much.

I came home, dropped Wink at the end of the drive and headed for the local clothes shop. Lovely owner helped me pick out lots of clothes and I bought about half of them. She was tremendously pleased as she said that it’s been very quiet so far this year – she gave me a discount, though I said she didn’t need to and then knocked another £20 off the final bill, which I also said she didn’t need to. So I will pop back to M&S to get a couple of teeshirts, but otherwise I’ll remember where the good shop is and be loyal.

Later, I had a bath and fell asleep. I dreamt about the barn cats and woke up puzzled, that I was immersed in warm water. It had been hot, half an hour earlier.