Monday 4th January 2021 Day 285
10.45 I am trying to write this while one black dog is sitting only a foot away trying to psyche me out to take her for a walk. Every so often she moves over to me and ‘rubber stamps’ my arm with her cold wet nose. It looks as if we are going to have to brave the rain but it’s going to be a short one this morning as I can’t think of anything I fancy doing less. No doubt I will be glad to have got out of the house, once we get back!
Just to add to the excitement, I have a click and collect grocery to get from Eastbourne at lunch time, what have things come to when you actually look forward to something like that?
11.30 We are back from the soggy walk and it was so grey and cold that I didn’t feel glad to have got out of the house, just very glad to get back into it and warm up again.
12.15 I am heading for Eastbourne, there’s not much traffic on the way which always makes driving so much more pleasant and the click and collect procedure is very efficient and I don’t have to wait around. A man in a black mask comes to the window of my car and
solemnly declares the two substitute items, namely kitchen towels, which sound exactly the same as the ones I selected and some other sort of lime pickle which, he assures me is a very much nicer brand and I will be getting 86% more pickle for the same money and could he please come and share my curry? To which I reply that he would be very welcome and he disappears off to get the groceries. Obviously we were both joking re the curry but it did get me thinking that he could have appeared for dinner, whipped off the black mask revealing perhaps just one tooth. All we get to see are eyes and foreheads these days, who knows what could be lurking beneath?
I have decided to do a small detour on the way home and go to look at the sea for five minutes, so I head off to Pevensey. There is plenty of movement and foam in the water and the only other soul is one loan fisherman over on the next groyne. He must be very hardy because I can only stand about five minutes of the biting cold wind but it was nice to be there even for just a few minutes.
13.30 I am home and unloading the shopping from the boot, then I spend the next half hour sitting huddled up to the radiator. It was worth the trips out for that nice sense of comfort to be back in the house and battening down the hatches for the rest of the day.
Tonight at eight, a message from Boris, unfortunately it is unlikely to be good news….