Thursday 25th February 2021 Day 338

6.45   I am waking early these mornings as it gets light so much earlier and looking out of my window I see the first Camelia flower has appeared on the bush full of buds.  It’s a later flowering one than most and it hails the first proper day of Spring for me.

I wish I knew how to feel about the beginning of ‘The Road Out,’ I mentioned the other day that I feel a little nervous about it which came as a complete surprise to me, not so much because I feel more than a little trepidatious at the prospect of coming out of it too quickly but more the integrating back into some sort of normal social life.  Of course I’m dying to meet up with all the people I have missed but frankly where to begin? One minute ensconced at home hardly seeing anyone and then….  I see in front of me an unending list of meet ups all needing to be done at once for fear of offence, hair appointments (I have been getting used to the witch’s hairstyle), new clothes to buy when I have been perfectly happy with what’s

in the wardrobe for the past year. Putting away the safety net of ordering everything from Amazon and going back into shops where I will be tempted to buy all sorts of things I don’t need, cleaning the car every five minutes, I can’t in all honesty remember the last time I put my mud encrusted car through the car wash because at the moment it just doesn’t matter one jot. The list goes on, maybe I have just adapted to this insular way of life a bit too well.   What does anyone else think about getting back to normality?

13.00  We’ve just got in from today’s walk in the fields and for the first time I didn’t have to perform a hose down on Audrey when we got back, the grass was dry, even at the bottom of the field, maybe the next walk will be the first this year in shoes instead of wellies.

In the end I had to buy a whole new filtration system for my pond but at least I can stop worrying that the fish are going to turn their fins up from polluted water or lack of oxygen.  They have been surfacing over the past couple of weeks after spending the winter at the bottom of the pond.  In fact they are looking hungry whenever I pass by, hoping I will take pity and throw them a crust or two,  metaphorically speaking but the water temperature isn’t warm enough yet which means they cannot digest food properly and it will rot in their stomachs.  Try telling them that, they don’t listen!

I ordered some paint the other day for the knobs on my kitchen cupboards.  A fairly substantial box arrived today and when I eventually got through all the packaging, I found two of the tiniest tins you ever saw.  Considering what I paid for them, thinking I was getting really good paint, they were probably worth, per ounce, about the same as gold.  You get caught out ordering on line from time to time.