The heating is working now in a hit and miss sort of way, it seems to come on when it feels like it. My watch is repaired and one lamp, but still the TV is on the blink, and I can`t manage the light bulb because you need two hands to do it and I have to hold on to the ladder. I am waiting in vain for the handyman to come. But things are looking up.
The Christmas cards are thudding in, mostly from people I have not yet sent to and also ones with no stamps from neighbours to whom it hadn`t occurred to me to write a card as I see them every day. What a strange business it all is. Nevertheless I do love coming home and finding a pile on the mat and then I sit happily opening them and hopefully reading a nice message or even a round robin. It`s always a disappointment if it is just a name.
Grand daughter M is off to Ecuador for a month on Wednesday to explore rainforests, go up the Amazon and walk in the Andes. What an adventurous family I have. I enjoy their travels vicariously. I have not the slightest desire to go anywhere out of England (except for little trips to France with brother P) I am off to Newcastle on Thursday for a few days to visit some of my tribe and that is far enough for me. I do love being at home in the warm with Radio 4 and occasional forays into the frosty woods with B. Wiggins. There are rumours that friend C is knitting him a proper yellow jersey for Christmas as worn by The Bradley Wiggins. I had to send measurents.
I am enjoying the Reith Lectures on Radio 4 though perhaps enjoy is not the right word as they are about death, dying and end of life care, but they are so interesting and really make you think about it all.
Another media highlight from last week was the docudrama about Christopher Jefferies, the retired schoolmaster accused of murder in Bristol two years ago. I can recall many slightly eccentric old gents a bit like him, He was treated in a horrifying manner by police and the press, just because he was a bit odd, and there was no real evidence at all. It was sensitively and beautifully produced and acted, a real treat to have a good play on TV instead of twaddle like Downton Abbey.