Wasting time

I spent an hour and a half sipping a latte in front of a log fire in the Crown Hotel in Fram this morning, doing the crossword. A changing cast of couples joined me on the opposite leather sofa, certain I'd want to chat despite my obvious preoccupations. The second pair suddenly realised that they hadn't recognised me sooner because I had clothes on. Was I a somnambulist swinger? No, I saw when I looked closely, we go to the same aqua aerobics class. The third pair decided I must be writing a book about Framlingham. Sounds pleasant enough, but I was also on a chatline to BT in India, my fifth this month, as I try with evident futility to get a solution to my phone and broadband problems. Anyone who has tried this knows how frustrating it can be. A terribly nice person comes online, apologises fulsomely for all your woes and assures you that it is their sacred duty to help you to put all these miseries behind you. Ninety minutes later they can't wait to get away from you. They start the conversation the same way every time, telling you they will check the line, despite your having told them that an engineer has already been, located a fault but not fixed it. I think it's all to do with these old country phone lines having been patched up with alluminium instead of copper when they needed repairing over the years.

Back home at last, with a promise of another engineer and the threat of a bill for £129 if the fault is my side of the boundary, I decided to see if the summerhouse was warm enough for lunch. With the sun beating on it all morning and the icy winds kept at bay, it was cosier then the centrally heated house. It's another lovely day, Fram bursting with tourists smug in the knowledge that they chose a good weekend for a getaway, and locals thronging the small but decidely classy market despite the chill northerly. In my garden a few daffodils are poking their heads up, and there are snowdrops, primroses and violets. Great clumps of irises look ready to bloom, and the scarlet and orange tips of the pretty euphorbia are making an appearance. It's all greatly encouraging, but I'm nervous. We had such an amazing spring last year, and though I can't exactly remember it now, apparently 2013 was the coldest on record. We English start to get optimistic as the evenings and mornings brighten up, but how often are our hopes dashed? I can't believe last year will be repeated - it never is - and am just taking each nice day as it comes, and each horrible one too. It's too cold to garden, and so I'm sewing curtain hems.

I used to think a weekend spent alone, or a whole Saturday in this case, would spell disaster somehow, the greatest evidence of failure. But why? I'm doing what I want to do in the nicest surroundings, and neither want nor need companionship to improve my quality of life, not today anyway. The Verdi Requiem is on Radio 3 this evening, and while it plays I'll eat my supper and read my book, warmed by the glow of the woodburner. You can't put a price on some things.