Late winter Monday

It's the time of year when we look forward to escaping from the marina. The days are getting longer, the weather is largely improving, there's that sense (a sign of old age) of "made it through another winter". This year, however, we'll have to hang about for another couple of months whilst Sheila undergoes, then recovers from, her op, so it will be late April or even early May before we get away.

We'll just have to possess ourselves with patience. Meantime, it's been a perfectly pleasant day today, mostly, bright and sunny though the wind was both strong and cold. Sheila's been doing the Monday washing and we put in a walk round the marina mid-morning, stopping to chat here and there as we went. All the time we were walking the weather looked threatening upwind, but it didn't start raining until we'd got safely back.

It then made up for it in spades, with a howling wind and lashing sleet which turned to hail at one stage. The hail came bouncing in through the mushroom vents, beating the drip catchers and rolling about all over the floor and furniture.

We were kept busy chasing it down and mopping up for ten minutes or so, when it all suddenly stopped and the sun broke through once more. Very spring-like in its way.

This afternoon I went round to the office to collect the new earphones which had been delivered. Ever since I had a robust exchange of emails with them about their driver "failing to find the address" Amazon have achieved much better delivery performance.

Probably there's a flag on my file identifying me as a trouble maker. Or am I being paranoid?

If so, blame the incipient cabin fever!

We've been loafing indoors ever since. The earphones are fine, by the way, coping with Status Quo in full flow without significant leakage to annoy Sheila.

Tonight, jambalaya with frozen raw prawns (ok, they are defrosted now and I'm going to cook them, but you know what I mean...)

Tomorrow, I'll be on my own for the morning whilst Sheila takes a taxi into the Royal Derby for her pre-op exam. I'm sure I'll find something to do ;)).