Winter bugs.

We are up for seven and breakfast just on rye toast and apricot conserve, Norman has Bakers again. The hall looks weird without the carpet, just the underlay showing while it awaits the fitter, who is coming to fit the parquet a week on Friday. We leave the house just after nine to collect the terriers, and take them for their walk on the Westwood. Usually we English moan about the changeability of the weather, but now we are moaning about its unchangeability, more specifically the cold east wind which we have been stuck with for six weeks now. It's only redeeming feature being the dryness that it brings with it, the paths through the woods have fully dried out now and last autumn's leaves are rustling merrily as they are blown about. The windchill as we walk across the open common towards Black Mill is such that one's only thoughts are to escape from it, back to the warmth of the car. We drop Dolly and Teddy back in Cherry Burton for ten thirty and then drive back to town, parking by Saint John's and then walking through North Bar, to the Poppy Seed cafe. Hanne is reading the paper when we arrive and after the waitress has brought my tea, updates me on the latest news from Melissa, Felicity's daughter. The poor old girl has been caught up in an outbreak of Norovirus that has swept through all the hospitals in the area, despite strict hygiene rules. Felicity cannot be discharged now until Ward 21 has been officially declared clear of the virus, colloquially known as the winter vomiting bug, obviously it would be irresponsible to transmit that to a nursing home. Thelma arrives at eleven o'clock and somehow we end up discussing the film "Conspiracy", a dramatisation of the infamous Wannsee conference, starting Kenneth Branagh, as Reinhardt Heydrich, Stanley Tucci as Adolf Eichmann and Colin Firth as the lawyer who drew up the Nuremberg Race laws. Thelma, who is a retired barrister, hasn't seen it and as ninety percent of the participants were lawyers, it is a kind of legal drama, albeit one with a perverted view of the raisin d'être for the rule of law. After I leave I remember that Leslie had the DVD and if the opportunity arises, I will ask William if I can have it for Thelma. I call back at Briggs and Powell to see if they have a diffuser to fit the new T8 fluorescent tube in the kitchen, but they don't and this probably means that a complete new fitting will be required. I then wander through town in search of new swimwear, the chlorine having eaten yet another pair of my trunks, fortunately I own several, but I am out of luck. Later, after lunch, I order a pair from eBay, in my size and also another batch of nose clips, without which I wouldn't be able to swim. I make panini, with Mozarella and sun dried tomatoes for lunch, with a little salad and then sit outside in the sun, close to the hedge in order to avoid the wind, to eat it. The effects of the previous late night catch up with me, so Norman and I have a snooze until tea time and then, when we get up, I make a pot of tea and iron a batch of shirts until eight o'clock, before driving to the pool to try to train. Half the pool is taken up by the swimming club and the other half is pretty busy, but it thins out at nine when the club leaves and I manage, somehow, to fit in a hundred lengths, eighty in medleys again. I climb out of the water at nine thirty expecting the pool to close, as indicated by the online programme, but Tom, the lifeguard, tells me that they clear the pool at ten. Inadvertently, I have discovered another golden hour, nine until ten in the evening. The only problem with swimming so late, is that it takes a couple of hours for the adrenalin to subside, and consequently I stay up until half past twelve, doing nothing much in particular except browsing the web looking at smaller cars, for the day when my Chrysler needs replacing.