Even though my working life began in the telecommunications side of the Post Office, my affection for the good old postal service is quite strong.  I guess much has to do with the life-long friendships I made at international postal conferences in 1974 and 1979.  But I was getting a bit nervous about the time a parcel was taking to arrive.  It’s a battery charger and spare camera battery, which I need on Saturday, and I ordered it over a week ago.  The site did say 4-7 working days for delivery (by Royal Mail), and now I see why – the envelope turned up this morning, stamped with 55 Hong Kong dollars (about £4.50).  How the nature of the business has changed.  Letters and bank statements are all electronic these days, and apart from Christmas cards and thank-you notes, practically all we get in the post is junk, much of it from Saga, from whom we don’t want car, house, pet, health or travel insurance, thanks very much.  Oh, and not cruises either.  (Their magazine is good, though.)

The other new component is parcels of stuff ordered on the internet, and it’s a strange week when we don’t get something or other via that route.  With the cost of fuel these days, it’s significantly cheaper to buy from on line suppliers, who furthermore charge less, by and large, because they haven’t got the expense of shop fronts.  Worrying for the retail trade, and particularly for individual traders already hit by Tesco and the like.  Fuel costs will benefit local shops, of course, but our two local grocers are both One-Stop stores – thinly disguised Tescos – within 100 yards of each other.

Books lately

I mentioned last month that I was quite glad to finish battling through Kate Mosse's Labyrinth. Since then I've read Jo Nesbø's Redeemer and finished Donna Tartt's equally bloody Secret History, the latter on paper, bought for a song from the heap at the Scout hut, where I meet my painting cronies. From the same source, I picked up Kate Atkinson's Emotionally Weird. Her stuff is certainly varied: I like her Jackson Brodie whodunits, but struggled with the museum thing.  Emotionally Weird is peculiar in the extreme, using different typefaces for each panel of the narrative.  The setting in Dundee was a plus for me, of course, as was the dialect from some of the characters, like: ‘she’s a crabbit wee wifie!’, and, in Wallace’s in Castle Street: ‘a plain bridie and an ingininana’, which fair took me back.  In fact, three of the four titles I mention have something in common: more or less familiar settings of the Corbières, Oslo and Dundee.  I’ve nothing unread in the Kindle at the moment, but I think there’s another Scout Hut special on top of the book case.

Noisy neighbours

We’re being harangued in the mornings by a rather rowdy songthrush, then for much of the day by a robin.  Martyn saw a male chaffinch yesterday (and it showed up again as I mentioned it, with Mrs C in tow), so it won’t be long before we’re complaining of its repetitive little song.  We love them all really, and it was good to see a treecreeper  the other day in next door’s oak.  This morning brought us a visit from a wren, and I think I saw a bunch of long-tailed tits in the ash tree before the wood pigeons came crashing in and scattered them.  Greats and blues are much in evidence too, as are the blackbirds, and the woodpeckers are drumming away like mad in the tall trees behind the houses opposite.  Spring is on the way.

Twice in a week

In stark contrast to Colin's funeral on Monday, Margaret's yesterday was a quiet affair.  Since it doesn't look like there'll be any memorial to her, here's a quick obit.  Margaret ('My name's not Peggy: it's Margaret Stirling Donald!') was next-door neighbour to my late mother-in-law in Corina's care home in Tonbridge.  Born in Invergordon in 1915, Margaret's early life was not in the warmest of family surroundings, and we understand that her subsequent marriage was annulled.  She was quite young, then, when she joined what was to become the Women's Royal Army Corps.  When I called on Edna at the home, I'd often find Margaret peeling the potatoes in the dining room.  'Spud bashing again, Margaret?'  'Aye, I'm on fatigues again!'  By that stage she had pretty well lost her eyesight, but kept up the repartee.  We'd often sit with her and Elizabeth in the lounge, for example when Edna was sleeping or being helped to answer a call of nature.  I don't know how the subject came up, but I remember her saying one day 'Ah, but David's got a fine head of hair.'  Hmmm.  And the annals of the care home record her potting up the bedding plants roots-up, bless her!  She is survived by Elizabeth, her companion of many decades, also ex-army.  Elizabeth told us yesterday that, when they first came to see the home and rang the bell, Margaret said 'We'll be a'right here!': the door bell played 'Greensleeves', the slow-march tune of the WRAC.  The committal was barely that: a bit of solemn music at the beginning, then a nod to the undertaker to come and push the button.  Mourners?  Corina, Martyn and yr. obed. servt. 

Returning to the utterly mundane, on the way home we called at the sorting office to collect a parcel that they tried to deliver in the morning when we were variously out: the new shower head.  It turned out that we didn't need to send for a plumber.  Unclip a trim, undo four screws, remove old shower arm, offer up new ditto, tighten same four screws, refit trim.  Bob: uncle; Fanny: aunt.

Bad news, good news

Slightly miffed that the shower head we had put in barely two years ago snapped off in my hand last time I went to adjust it.  The adjusting part is built round a miserable piece of polystyrene or some such plastic.  Well, to avoid complication, we've bought an identical replacement on ebay - for 30% less than we paid Gr*h*ms two years ago.  And we'll treat it gently.

The temperature is a practically tropical 5.3°C out there, so the snow has vanished except where it has been swept into heaps.  Hurrah.  There was a line of compacted snow just outside the drive, and I hastened it on its way with a spade and a broom earlier.  I shall miss it not one jot. 

Sad day

Only a small amount of standing room left today at Medway Crem when we met to see off a friend of a friend.  There are 48 seats in the chapel, and there were fully double that number of mourners.  Colin had had seven years of remission following a first bone marrow transplant, but the assault on his immune system for the second one left him vulnerable to an infection that carried him off, aged 60.  Derry (now twice widowed) spoke very well - significantly better than the rather long-winded minister, I have to say.

It was a miserable cold, wet day, though the drizzle is at least starting to shift the snow.  I was chilled to the bone after the lengthy standing about afterwards.  I'm sure they configure crematoria so as to funnel the cold wind: a device to drum up business, maybe? 

I'm glad to see the snow starting to melt.  Granted, the views as I drove home from court on Friday were sublime, with a huge red sun setting over snow-covered fields edged with skeletal trees.  And the drive to and from Brighton on Saturday was good too: lunch with Barbara, plus a bit of furniture rearranging and replacing of light bulbs.  The sort of thing we can do without turning a hair (even if I had one), but which present problems for someone less tall and living alone.  Had I half the sense I was born with I'd have taken with me a jacket that needed a button sewing back on and a tie that needed tacking back together: the sort of thing Barbara can do in her sleep, but which leads to a haze of obscenities and bloodstains when I tackle it (but it's done now).

When we arrived here at Forges-l'Evêque, we inherited a curtain of great quality but little charm behind the front door, which is in any case perfectly draught-proof.  We finally took a scunner to it last week, closely followed by a screwdriver (honorable mention to the first reader to name the figure of speech).  It was heading for the dust-sheet bag when I thought of freecycle: having put it up for re-homing yesterday, I have six people after it already, and will adjudicate this evening.  Next, we should apply ourselves to the countless suitcases in the attic, some full, some empty.  But I doubt if we'd find homes for suitcases without wheels these days - why did it take so long for that particular penny to drop?