Thursday 2nd November

 

Actually, on Monday 30th October we were still at Prospect Tower, but only for as long as it took to leisurely pack up our stuff, have a 'second breakfast' of the frozen croissants we had forgotten to eat earlier and load up the car. And yes, we did CARRY the bags downstairs from the living room rather than just dropping them out of the window!

We were home in time for lunch, in spite of the weather, and plunged straight into a busy couple of days. Three of the nine piano lessons I still teach every week were cancelled for various reasons, and I have to say I am very grateful! Just one lesson to write up, and one more to teach, and then my diary returns to the normal pattern. I hope.

Cold dank weather always makes me a feel as though I am really some kind of reptile in disguise; the sort that doesn't get moving until its body has warmed up, and really needs to be housed in some specially heated environment with lots of bright sun.

So I have spent most of today sitting on the settee reading (finished 'Near Neighbours' by Molly Clavering, a feel-good gentle comedy set in Edinburgh and written in 1956, when people still had cooks and parlour maids who had morning and afternoon uniforms, and started 'Untrue till Death' by Graham Brack, the second of the Master Mecurius mysteries set in 17th century Holland).

I have wrapped myself in a knitted blanket to keep warm, not this one;

which is a patchwork blanket constructed from mitred squares each joined in as you go along. I remembered in time that I had started adding another square so I would have got into difficulties with the knitting needles sticking into it.

One joy to great us on our return was the moon in the morning. O.n Tuesday it was there, high in a blue patch of sky and nearly full. Thanks to my brief obsession with the moon in - August? September? - I know where to look to find it 

I've been getting up for breakfast; for a long time now I have been enjoying having breakfast in bed, but with the evenings getting dark so early it seems a shame to miss too much of the mornings.