Tuesday 20th Octrober 2020 Day 210
6.45 I wake to my alarm ringing and a man’s voice talking about climbing in the Himalayas. I had switched the radio on in the night and must have gone back to sleep before switching it off. The odd thing was that I was dreaming about mountains, so it must have been filtering through in my sleep. The man is pronouncing the word as ‘Himarlias’ which sets me to wondering why we have to keep changing the pronunciation of historical names such as that and Boudicea/Boudica/Boudicca Byzantine/Bizanteen etc.
9.00 Audrey is looking at me with those beseeching treacle eyes in the hopes of wearing me down for an early walk. Unfortunately for her, we shall not be going for one today because she is in the ‘delicate position’ which happens twice a year until January next year when it will become no longer possible for her to have a litter. If only I could explain that we are confined to barracks for a while. Luckily there is room in the garden and we can do plenty of ball throwing to wear down her tireless energy a bit but for now I am just going to try to avoid those eyes.
11.00 I switch on my computer and am faced with a blue screen and a sad faced emoji telling me that my computer has run into a problem which they will fix and start back up again. It all looks a bit odd to me so I phone my neighbour who is a computer whizz
and will look at it for me later. Meanwhile I have rebooted and am just hoping it hasn’t got some sort of a virus. At least it is unlikely to be Covid.
13.00 I have to pop over to East Hoathly on an errand and decide to go the country lane way, I feel very guilty driving past the layby where we park for the woods. I park up in the village and walk past the telephone box which is now called a Book Exchange as so many of the old red boxes are. It’s a great idea giving them a new useful lease of life but a bit sad as well. I remember as a child, the big heavy black receiver and the box where you pressed ‘A’ when you made contact with whoever you were phoning, or ‘B’ to get your money back and of course the smell. All telephone kiosks that I remember smelled of damp and stale smoke, I can imagine the smell now.
I am finishing this early today so that I can give my computer to my neighbour for whatever therapy it might need……..