February already

Back to the Smith Towers layout, mirror image

Jokers"Я"Us Home Improvements continue to impress.  We waited in on Friday as asked.  Did they turn up?  Did they buggery!  (Neither in fact, so there's something to be grateful for, I guess.)  The plumber, on the other hand, arrived as arranged on Monday morning, and replaced the old dining room radiator with a tall thin job that chucks out plenty of heat (part-funded by the February-March council tax holiday).  The change was to make space for a dresser or sideboard.  Three walls of the dining room are mostly glazed, and the fourth was largely taken up by an old radiator and some gravely ugly pipework.  The late Charles Henry's old Stag chest of drawers, which served as a sideboard at Smith Towers, fits in perfectly, as does the late Doris Eileen's armchair, so we'll patch and polish the former and get a new cushion for the latter, and see if we can get a few more years out of them.  They also mask the need to redecorate, so we can put that off until the weather allows us to have the doors open.  We'd miss Miss's beach painting if we had a dresser, so there's yet another good reason to Do Nothing.  Except keep the pressure up on Jokers 'Я' Us Home Improvements.  I suggest that, if you have been watching this space, you desist now, unless I can find diverting ways to narrate the endless litany of failure.

Delightful lunch at the Rayners' on Sunday.  Ricotta, spinach and pine nut tart; beetroot, parsnip and chick pea casserole, and excellent company as always.  We'd hoped to entertain them here to tea today, but we learned, just as I put the spiced teacakes to prove, that their local meeting had been cancelled.  Ten out of the twelve teacakes are now in the freezer (two having been pronounced satisfactory) so we hope it's just partie remise.  It's been a bit of a baking orgy today: a dozen chouriço rolls are proving fragrantly as I type.  We're running out of freezer space.

Until the other day, we hadn't seen snow here for a couple of years.  So far, the snow has come and gone pretty quickly the couple of times we've had falls.  But the fridge and freezer are stocked for a siege just in case, though if the snow comes, I might have to trudge down to the village for a spot of Mother's Ruin: systemic insulation.  The snowdrops may have to live up to their charming French name of perce-neige.

We're starting to plan this year's first trip south.  Flights are booked for late April and early May, and we're shopping around for car hire.  I'm beginning to find the drive a bit of a pain, though we'll probably drive a couple of times later in the year, since there's alway stuff to schlepp out and/or back.  On the back of a virtual fag packet, Martyn has worked out that, if we can get cheap flights and car hire, and don't need immediately to schlepp stuff, it's cheaper, taking fuel, hotel, dinner, tunnel charges and tolls into account.  Not to mention wear and tear on your elderly and as ever obedient servant.