So Long ...

Today is the longest day, and tonight will be the longest night until 2039. I don't know why that is, but I do know that for me last night was the shortest. I went to bed at a reasonable time, settling down for a nice read with my cocoa, my bed heated, my bedside light glowing; best time of the day usually. But I've finished all my delicious books - Sarah Walters' Paying Guests (8 stars), Donna Tartt's Goldfinch (9 stars), and Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (8 stars, not quite as good as Half a Yellow Sun, 10 stars). And so I picked a book off the shelves that I've always meant to read, Parents and Children by Ivy Compton-Burnett. It's a Penguin Modern Classic, highly recommended as one of the great pieces of 20th-century literature. But what a load of scrubbish! I read 20 pages and couldn't tell you what it was about. From the back cover I learned that an aristocratic family, Lord This and Lady That, live in their ancestral home with their son, his wife and their nine children. Nine! Cue languid but sparky dialogue between Graham (I know, and him titled!), Daniel, Lucia, their parents and their grandparents. What were they saying? I don't know! None of it made any sense. I've unravelled Ulysses in my time, though Finnegans Wake defeated me, but this! Furious, the hour too late to start another book, I threw it aside and turned off the light. But could I sleep? Not a wink. Graham and co's indecipherable words crawled around my brain leaving me foxed and irritable.

I must have dozed off because I woke thirsty and poured myself some water from the bottle by my side. Not into the glass though. The hour was 3am. After mopping up the mess I found myself returning to the maddening Graham. Was it me, incapable of comprehending what might have been dazzling, witty conversation? I must have dozed again because the next thing I heard was my neighbours talking loudly behind my bedroom wall. It was 6.10am. They get up early every morning and I never hear a thing, but this was Sunday! What the hell were they doing? I stuffed in my handy earplugs, my saviours when the wind cracks the loose wisteria strands against the window like a desperate Cathy, but it was no good. And so I got up at 6.45am to face the longest day. Outside it was still dark though a narrow horizontal slit of light heralded the dawn to come. I switched on the Christmas tree lights, and felt peace descend on my weary frame. How I love this time of year with its promise of a colourful, noisy, friendly houseful of family. At least I can understand what they say, aristocrats though they be not. Stuff you Graham!

Booze and Bras

Just back from a nice boozy lunch with my bridge friend H. She regaled me with tales of her poisonous mother, her deadleg partner, her ghastly son, and all the other inhabitants of her colourful world. While she dabbled with a bowl of mushroom soup and a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc followed quite swiftly by another, chatting all the while, I tucked with extreme heartiness into bacon and turkey parcels stuffed with mushrooms and chestnuts. It was delicious, and so were the gratin dauphinois and fresh veggies that came with it. I was a bit hungry because I ran out of time to cook a meal before the cinema last night, and had to get some Aldeburgh fish and chips which I ate in the car while Ruth got our seats. I can't usually eat whole portions, so I've cottoned on to the children's serving, all of £3, which still defeats me. I ate as much as I could in the car in a rush, but how embarrassed I was on leaving the fish and chip shop to discover my new hairdresser standing by the counter. Is she trying to remember how much I tipped her?

Which reminds me of something I noticed at my bra-buying session recently. The M&S lingerie department actually had more men in it than women, and I don't believe any of them were shopping for themselves. I found it not just disconcerting but downright unpleasant to be surrounded by men picking up frilly, scanty bras and pants in lurid colours, presumably Christmas presents for the woman in their lives. There was something pervy about it all, and I wonder how many wives and girlfriends will be thrilled when they unwrap those parcels. Why can't they buy them a David Austen rose for the garden, or a trip to Morocco? Or is it just me?

Danger

I admit to experiencing an extended frisson of unease today. I set off for a nice long walk, the wind a fairly stout northerly but otherwise mildish for the time of year. Earlier the eastern sky had been ablaze, its scarlet lights turning the trees a brilliant amber. You know what they say, Red Sky in the Morning etc, but I planned to stick to the lanes and I was well wrapped up. But I can never resist an unfamiliar footpath, and spotting one on my right after about half an hour I hopped over a stile and set off through a large meadow, diagonally uphill. It was a tough climb, and at the top I rested on another stile and looked around me. OK, I was well off the beaten track, and it suddenly occurred to me that if I had a heart attack now I'd be stuffed. Why hadn't I brought my phone? The next part of the walk was through a very soggy field of winter barley, and soon my wellies were weighed down with clinging mud, the heavy wet variety, yellow sticky clay. On and on I plodded, my enjoyment marred not by the conditions but the thought that had wormed its way into my head of how vulnerable I was, especially given the cold and the short dark days. My sister is always begging me to take the phone with me, but I rarely do.

I got back eventually of course. The walk merged into one of the hikes I used to do with the dog, and despite the now bare wintry scenery I knew exactly where I was. The thing about living alone is that nobody realises you're missing, at least not at once. I'm going to the cinema with a friend tonight, and I daresay she'd have worried if I hadn't turned up. But some days I neither see not speak to anybody. So it has to be the phone then. Resistance is not just foolish, it could be life-threatening.

A bit out of focus

On another note the mysterious tree/shrub in the front garden which I though might have been calycanthus occdentalis is producing masses of delicate pale yellow flowers all along its gaunt stems. It stands at over six feet tall, with summer leaves that are leathery and dark green. The stems seem to have a spicy scent. It's my first December in this house so I've never seen it flower before. But what can it be? Val the gardener was foxed, and so am I.

And now for something completely different. Denise the Usher. Ah!

The Smart Set

It's quite amazing the different audiences the various Live From the Met (NY Metropolitan) operas attract. If I were a sociologist I'd have a field day in Aldeburgh. You get coachloads of music lovers bussed in from all the outlying villages for the lighter stuff, some Verdi, for example, anything by Puccini, or Rossini. They shuffle a bit in their seats when the music stops being light and frothy. They're not keen on overtures - nothing to look at except the conductor. Some of them have bags of sweets and boxes of chocolates, which does not please their more hardline neighbours, for there will be many of them too. The trippers are so happy to be watching an opera which is not too highbrow, and they laugh a lot and are jolly but don't get the musical jokes. The afficianados titter before the surtitles go up - they've seen them all before, many times. If there were CDs of operatic arias sung by Andrea Boccelli, or Katherine Jenkins for sale in the foyer, the coach would be packed with them on the journey home. They might all sing a catchy tune they remember, Sempre Libera from La Traviata perhaps.

For Mozart you get all sorts too, but it's mostly serious music lovers. They already have the CDs of all of Mozart's operas, perhaps more than one copy of each one recorded from a different opera house. They love music, really love it, and they arrive from the same outlying villages but in pairs or foursomes, never en masse. Some of them might even have brought the score which they discreetly follow with the aid of a tiny, non-distracting torch. When you chat to them in the interval the discussion ranges over the production of Flute you saw at Covent Garden in 1994 with Kiri on roller skates, or the time Angela Gheorghiu so memorably sang Figaro with Roberto Alagna at Glyndebourne, must have been 2007 was it, just before they announced their engagement and set the operatic world on fire?

But for a Wagner opera? Oh the difference. These people are the real operatic McCoy. They will sit through hour after hour of the richest, fullest, most heavenly, most glorious music ever written, their faces rapt, their bodies still. They don't usually attend an opera unless it's in an opera house. If they want to see something at the Met they fly to New York for it. But this opportunity to share such a first class musical experience on their doorstep (up to 20 miles away or so) they seize gratefully. They know there will be no rustling of sweet wrappers, no fidgeting, no coughing even - as at Snape most people would rather have a seizure than let that bark out. They have no qualms about sitting still for a two and a half hour-long third act of Die Meistersinger as they did last night. The interval discussions tend to be technical, uber-serious music lovers as they are, though once after the first act of Parsifal the woman behind me commented disparagingly on the plastic chairs on stage as I was recovering from a two-hour-long swoon. Not only do they have all the CDs of all Wagner operas, they have the records as well, carefully replaced in their immaculate covers after each airing. At least one of the recordings of each will have been made at Bayreuth. And at midnight they return to The Old Vicarage, Moat Farm, The Hall, their beautiful timber-framed or Georgian homes in some lovely village, their spirits soaring, their senses tingling, their souls at peace. That's what Wagner does for you.

Uniformly Black

Today I went to Norwich to shop for my new Snape togs ready for my debut on Sunday. I bought a black cashmere polo neck sweater and some soft-soled shoes to go with my gorgeous new black trousers. We're meant to be invisible and silent once the concerts start, in case we need to attend to an emergency or something. I look like a black panther. All I need now is a lovely new face and I'll be laughing. John Lewis as usual came up with the above goods, but I think their lingerie department has gone downhill of late. I decided to visit M & S for some new bras. What a palaver! I've never seen so much choice. As usual I headed straight for nursing bras, closely followed by sports bras when I realised my mistake. And then I drifted around the aisles in a bewildered state. There were, just off the top of my head, Minimisers - guaranteed to make you look a whole cup size smaller; Plunge bras, Padded, Underwired, Padded and Underwired, Post-Surgery, Soft Shape, Balcony, Smoothing, Strapless, Full Cup - I could go on but I've forgotten the rest. What to choose?

I grabbed a handful and took them to the fitting room. On a whim I asked if there was anyone who could measure me, and despite an appointment system a fitter was free. Your lucky day, said the nice lady with the viciously dyed black hair - not a great look for the older woman. In with me came Eleanor, hiding in a sort of outer cubicle as I stripped off to my bra at her direction, and then emerging to wrap a tape measure around me. M & S clearly have a no-touch no-look policy when it comes to breasts. Not like Rigby & Peller who can barely keep their hands off your mammaries. Nothing I had selected pleased Eleanor. She returned with an armful for me to try. Calmly she adjusted each one, but still she was not satisfied. I have an odd dip between my boobs apparently which makes fitting tricky. Finally, triumph! Yes, she said, I'll be happy to let you buy those.

I took them to the pay desk, and there was my black-haired friend on the till. "How did you get on Mrs Laing?" she asked. I told her I was thrilled and amazed at Eleanor's advice, that I thought I was a 36B but am really a 34C. She said most women who came to be fitted wore the wrong sized bras. "We see all sorts of horrors," she confided, laughing. "It's a real eye opener." I'll bet. And I'm sure I added to their store of anecdotes this afternoon.

Let The Show Commence

Today was final training at Snape before we start ushering for real next week. We're seasoned invigilators of the art exhibitions now, but this is our first proper gig, the reason we signed up and were vetted as volunteers. They're a lovely crowd, front of housers Deborah and Beverley, and house manager Jeremy, and though Snape concerts are run mainly around music lovers who would sweep the floors for the privilege of being part of the scene, unpaid natch, they are awfully grateful to us. Honestly, it's the other way around guys! I was feeling very relaxed until they started to tell us what could go wrong though rarely did, and I felt a minor fit of the vapours coming on. A heart attack in the middle of a slow movement, the sufferer sitting in the very middle seat in the middle section. Whatever happens, though they only touched on terrorist attacks and didn't tell us how that would pan out, the show must go on. I loved that: It's showtime! So everyone has to be slid out of their seats so that the victim can be reached and treated. Aaargh! People coming back late after the interval: sorry, you can't come in! Double-booked seats! People sitting in the wrong seat! People coughing! Suddenly it didn't seem the breeze it had. But these things almost never happen, they assured us again. Really?

View from the concert hall

They needed someone urgently for an afternoon concert on Saturday, and as everyone else muttered and flipped diary pages, I volunteered. You'll be first, my friend Sammy said. Let me know as soon as it's over how it went. But then I too looked at my diary and saw Die Meistersinger Live From The Met. Sammy was in like a shot. She'll get her red usher's ribbon, but I'll have mine soon too. Such a pleasure to be part of Snape. Not only a world class concert venue but the most beautiful, atmospheric place I can imagine. Having an interval drink on the terrace on a summer's evening when the tide is in and the estuary full, the sun bouncing off the golden reeds, you'd believe you were in heaven.

She Dwelt Among the Trodden Ways

It may seem like it often, but there aren't many untrodden ways left in the country now. It felt like it this morning, though, as I set off for a walk. I'd been up since 6.45, an ungodly hour which I rarely see, but a text message telling me my new dishwasher would be delivered between 7 and 11am meant I had to leave my warm bed long before I wanted to. Amazingly it arrived early, and I had bathed, breakfasted and read the news headlines online by 9am. Sid came and did what he had to do, and we remarked on the loveliness of the day, cold though it was. When he'd gone, sadly wishing me a happy Christmas, I set off down Bannocks Lane, but instead of turning off into one or other field and making a wide loop I continued down to Bruisyard in the Alde Valley. I meant to turn back at this point, but the devil took me and I decided to make it a grand tour.

Wilby front and (top) back

Oh Suffolk, how beautiful are your houses! Timber-framed old properties still stand after 400 years, some in a mild or serious state of disrepair, many renovated and immaculate in their sprawling landscaped gardens. All have an air of timelessness, of history, that I find utterly beguiling. There are so many, thatched or tiled depending on when modernisation took place - once English Heritage introduced their Listings system the roofing had to stay put. Luckily for aesthetics there's still plenty of thatch. I was retracing the drive I did at the end of summer when I searched for eggs for my lunch. My jaw literally hung loose then with incredulity at yet another source of hidden jewels, pearls strung out along this unfamiliar lane, and today, moving at a much slower pace, I was able to linger outside each one, staring, devouring with my eyes, trying to imagine them as they were centuries ago. I lived in and loved such a house until a year ago, its antiquity a constant thrill. I've gone Victorian now, but I'll never forget the privilege of inhabiting a space in constant use since the last few years of Elizabeth I.

Hares a'Trembling

Keats knew days and nights like this, what with his beadman's dull fingers and chilled owls. I can't even bear to think of his hares in the frozen grass given that mine are so evident in their crouching misery. It's properly winter at the moment, though knowing the mercurial behaviour of the English weather we're probably not in for a nice cold snap that will last until March charges in with customary ebullience. I love the winter. There's a natural sense of things quietening down, of boundaries closing in and one's personal world shrinking protectively. It's a time for reflection. The short days and long, long evenings are calming and salving. I feel like a small furry animal safe in my warm house, looking inwards for comfort and entertainment. When it's very cold like this I still venture out for games of bridge, visits to the cinema or Snape with friends, walks around the fields or on the beach, but always there's a sense of thrill, as if these are dangerous, exciting activities and real life is near the Rayburn or the wood-burning stove with the curtains shut tight against the dark. Living in the country is possibly at its best in the chilly winter when the trees and fields are stripped bare, the hedgerows are subdued, and  sightings of people are even fewer than usual. The sense of life pausing for a few months before bursting out again like magic is always a cause for optimism.

I'm waxing lyrical of course. Wet winter days are as horrible as cold and grey summer ones, and muddy lanes irritating in all seasons. Every now and then I hear sharp bursts of gunfire as another pack of men in green descend on nearby shoots. It's all part of the package, though, and I'm grateful to be part of it. On Saturday I popped into Framlingham for a jubilee clip, ready for when my new dishwasher is delivered, and was surprised afresh at the jollity of the town on this market day. The centre was thronged with locals and a few tourists queueing up for speciality cheeses, bread, vegetables and sweet and savoury pastries, the pop-up cafe vying for customers with the Dancing Goat and the Crown, coffee-lovers laughing at the outside tables as their breath whitened the air. It's partly the Christmas spirit of course. Say what you will about this absurdly over-abundant festival, it seems to bring out the best in people, a generosity and fellowship that is often lacking. I'm feeling it myself, and might need to put a padlock on my wallet soon or the winter will be long, cold and hungry. Not a pleasant thought at all.

PS

So lovely to get all these gorgeous cards, as well as emails and internet postings. Feel the lurve (I can't believe I just wrote that).

Daughters, Daughters Everywhere

I had the mother of all birthdays yesterday: champagne, chocolates, cake - and that was before the proper celebrations even began. You would never normally associate me with the indulgent girls' day out at a spa. All that lounging around in a swimsuit and towelling robe, flip-flopping about the place in too big slippers, dipping in and out of this treatment, that sauna, probably giggling. Not my bag really, or so I thought. But that was before I went to Elvedon Forest. It was honestly one of the best experiences of my life. Yes, we spent the day in swimming togs and robes, yes we wore towelling slippers, and yes we giggled. But I never once looked at the book I'd brought - there simply wasn't time! We started out with coffee and pastries while we wound down and exchanged news. Then we hit the pool, outdoors but oh so hot, with jets of water coming at us from all directions. As I floated towards the centre of the pool a massive eruption underneath me tossed me into the air Vesuvius style. It was pure bliss, once I got my breath back.

And then there were all the different steam or dry rooms to try: Japanese, Balinese, Greek, Indian, Turkish hamam, Tyrolean, each had its own atmosphere, different scent, different effect. We sweated in the detox room, lounged in the gentle, relaxing heat of the Roman Laconium, cleared our tubes with the help of essential oils including eucalyptus in the hamam, revelled in the dry heat of the Greek bath - we did the rounds, slip slapping carelessly from room to room. Upstairs all three of us climbed into a huge water bed on an outside balcony and curled up together under blankets and quilts. It was all sensory heaven.

By lunchtime we were ready for our glass of Prossecco, and then it was time for our treatments. I opted for reflexology, and lay on a bed in a darkened room while wonderful firm hands stroked and moulded my feet. My companions had chosen massages, one the firm chops of a Swedish stress buster, the other the softer attention of aroma therapy. We were all noticeably even more chilled when we reconvened for tea - cream scones naturally - and the day ended with a delicious Chinese in Diss.

I tell you I'm a convert, and you know what they're like: even more full of wondrous zeal than those who knew The Truth all along. If it becomes a regular birthday treat I'll spend 364 days looking forward to it. Best day evah! Thanks girls!

Did and Sid

That indispensable duo, Did and Sid, visited today. Not together. Though some of their areas of expertise cross over, they don't know each other. Sid first: lugubrious Sid, Eeyore stand-in. I greeted him at the gate and right away he told me, eyes big and tragic, "I've not been good". He didn't mean he'd been evil, spraying graffiti on the church door, setting fire to hayricks, but was referring to that untreated hernia which he has finally been forced to take to the doctor. "And I've been sad," he said, brown eyes watering. "You know, S-A-D, because of the winter." And he stood there like an awkward lanky schoolboy, helplessly, pleadingly. Take me in, his eyes said. Look after me. Oh Sid! Wouldn't it be lovely if I were a jolly apple-cheeked countrywoman with a cosy cottage and a heart of gold, and with a Sid-shaped hole in my life. I made him a cup of tea while he set his mole traps, and got him to smile as I took his picture. When he left he was grinning to himself. It was a very cold morning. I hope my cheeks weren't too rosy.

Eeyore

And then came Did, the complete opposite of Sid, always cheerful, glass half full. And while Sid won't touch voles, Did brought poison. He's so resourceful, such a "can do" kind of man. The lawn is already in a terrible state, so he set to work. He doesn't think it's voles, he thinks it's rats. He placed sachets of blue granules in various places, shoved well in so the birds don't try them. Everyone's got rats this year, he said. But the poison in the woodshed disturbs me: I don't want to be confronted by slimy-tailed vermin when I go to get my logs. Did I say I was a ratophobe? That's a massive under-statement. I'm petrified, putrified of rats. I loathe them. But you know what? I think Did is wrong and it is voles. I've seen the pattern of tracks weaving around the lawn on the internet, classic vole behaviour. I need a nice barn owl, or a feral cat. We'll see.

He's coming back soon to cut down the hedge with his mate Nick. I know Nick already. He lives in a house now but for years his home was a tent on the beach in the summer, and a hut hidden deep inside Dunwich Forest in the winter. When the weather got really cold he moved in with his parents, uncomfortable with the heating and the restriction of brick walls. I don't know how he's coping with having a cottage. Does he still cook on a fire out of doors, and use the facilities of a handy tree? I've never seen him out of shorts, whatever the weather, and he cycles everywhere. You'll see him sometimes late in the evening, cycling from the quiz night in Yoxford to Peasenhall, brown legs pumping, puffing up a hill, pudding basin hair bouncing with the effort. He's a real throwback, a countryman who loves everything about the outdoors.

I asked Did if he'd like me to hire an industrial-sized shredder to deal with the smaller branches and twigs but he said he'd burn them. "That doesn't matter if it's raining even," he told me. "I can burn water!"

Ole!

The title of this post translates from the Spanish as Hurrah!, but that's not my version. Oh no. Uh uh. If you put a letter v or a letter m before it you get GARDEN PESTS, and just to show that the wildlife of Suffolk is mocking me they've sent two of their most destructive critters to plague me. At the same time! I remember the vole tracks from the lawns at Wilby when we had a huge pond and resident water voles. But I have no water here, and there is no undergrowth for voles to hide under. Where are they coming from? And another mole! This two-pronged "ole!" attack has to be stopped, and so Sid will be calling on me next week. I'm thinking of paying my pension directly to him each month since that's where all my money is going to go. And as I drove home late this evening from seeing Imitation Game in Aldeburgh, I saw a member of the genus rattus rattus run across the lane and down beside my hedgerow. But you know what? Ratophobe though I am I didn't give him a second thought. I've got more pressing vermin on my plate.

Still on a garden theme I'm waiting for the last of the leaves to fall from the western boundary hedge and trees, but they're being very slow this year. Once they're all down Did is coming to chop several feet off their height so my summerhouse doesn't sit in shade from around 4pm in the summer. These were the trees today glowing golden in the November sunshine. It is a shame to reduce them to around half of their current height, but needs must, and they'll grow again. A summerhouse has to have sun. It's a law of nature.

Imitation Game was brilliant but heartbreaking. Alan Turing came across in the film as secretive and unfeeling, but he learned how to be such at an early age. Lonely and bullied at school for being different - he was high on the autistic spectrum - he had one close friend who transformed his life but who died about a year into their friendship. Terrified that authority suspected a homosexual liaison, he denied any closeness when told of Christopher's death, hiding his shock and pain behind a stiff upper lip. He called his enigma code-breaking machine Christopher, and loved it as he had its namesake. He killed himself at 41. Really gut-wrenching stuff.

Folie a Neuf

It looks so small!

And here it is, my latest mirrorial folly. When the polyfilla over the screws dries I shall paint it a jolly colour, or maybe a sombre one. I can now count nine mirrors in the house, ten if you include the small one on a stand that magnifies your face if you turn it the other way. Narcissists will love being here. The new mirror is big, five feet by three. But I think I like it. It's too high to let me see myself working at the barre or the room could be a ballet studio. But I think it will improve the light situation, and maybe now a function will suggest itself.

On the left the old yellow, on the right the new Slipper Satin

I popped down to Waitrose to order my turkey since I'd been so unsuccessful online, only to be thwarted again. Bloody internet. So I did a bit of shopping, and at the fish counter I saw some nice line-caught cod loins, slightly reduced. One of them was significantly smaller than the other one. "Could I have that chap please," I said, pointing at the little 'un. We Laings tend to anthropomorphise objects. As the fishmonger wrapped it he said "He's called Roger". I thought I'd misheard him, and then I was sure I hadn't. "What's the other one called then?" I asked, and back he came, quick as a flash: "That's Clive." And I thought I was the only loony in these parts. "We give then names when it's quiet," he told me with a grin. High five, respect, whatevs. "Tell all the truth, but tell it slant," wrote Emily Dickinson, and I'm sure Yeats said something similar. The straight and narrow is so boring. Much better to wobble the lines and take a different squint.

Water, Water Everywhere

I have a lot of oddly-shaped roofs on my house, and a great many outbuildings, all with nice gutters. The house ones mostly drain directly into pipes leading to the septic tank, apart from one where the rain can run so forcefully that it misses the gutter and bounces straight down the wall. But the others - one along each side of the garage, one along the side of what was the old washhouse, and one on what is now my woodshed - pour straight onto the ground. That may have been fine when the garden was a haven for donkeys, but it's turned over a new leaf now. You can't grow roses and clematis under Suffolk's version of Niagara Falls. And so I've been buying water butts, the slimline ones, and plan to attach a length of hose to each of them for the winter so that the water can drain straight into the ditch, or moat as I like to call it in grandiose moments. In the summer I'll have plenty of water in dry spells, and I'm hoping Santa will send me a team of elves to wield the heavy watering cans.

Another problem is a bit more slippery. A few months ago I painted the Room With No Name, a nice F & B Slipper over the horrible bright yellow. It and the attached utility room on the way to the cloakroom were the only ugly spaces in the house. I was very pleased with the result, happy that one coat had covered the yellow so well. Yesterday I did the utility area, but this morning I can see that it needs another coat. Puzzled, I had a closer look at the RWNN, only to discover that it probably needs a second coat as well. The space is so gloomy I hadn't noticed. Darn it! The nearly full tin that was left behind by the previous owners is virtually empty, and in any case I haven't got the will to do it again. Luckily the handy Tony is coming this afternoon with his father to hang my huge mirror in the RWNN. I'm sure he can whip around the walls in no time for me. Painters love to be indoors in the winter.

I had occasion to go into Framlingham before 9 this morning, and what a different world it is then! Traffic jams, queues, the usual laid-back atmosphere charged with tension. It took me eight minutes to get to my destination where normally it's only five. At one point I was waiting behind four cars to get through the town. I'm not doing that again. Life's too short.

Bun in the Oven

I've made the Christmas cake and it's in the oven. I thought I'd given up such calorific indulgence a few years ago, but I was persuaded to reconsider. And so I flitted hither and thither gathering ingredients: who knew my new larder would be bereft of mixed spice, nutmeg, baking powder? I mixed the whole lot in, and it was then that I inadvertantly set the machine going before putting the lid down. Result? Splatterings of mixture all around the kitchen and on me. No wonder everything takes so long. I looked around for the two little girls to give it a stir for good luck. But where were they? Oh yes, like the larder's basic ingredients they had gone, all grown up and making their stamp on the world. Once upon a time I used to photograph them engaged in this time-honoured tradition, a wooden spoon covered in cake mixture rammed into their mouths, their eyes wide with pleasure. There was nothing for it but to do my own "lickies". Yum yum.

And now I have to see if the Rayburn is going to be on my side or not. I placed the cake in the bottom oven which is cooler than the main one, though I have no idea what temperature either of them reaches. Nine hours later it smells good, but I'm leaving it on all night on the advice of my friend Judy the Aga afficionado. Fingers crossed.

Mystery Unfolded

I stood in Trafalgar Square for ages yesterday morning, the day sunny and pleasant, tourists just beginning to stir. I was there for the Rembrandt exhibition, but what kept me outside for so long were the performance artists. We've all seen those men, dressed from head to toe in silver or gold, who seem to perch in midair, no visible signs of support. How the heck do they do it? They were just setting up as I arrived, and they were a revelation. Scowling and aggressive looking to a T, they couldn't help but reveal most of their secrets to amused passers by as they made their preparations. Before they got into their final position they swathed themselves in blankets or duvet covers, but you could see that their seats, attached to the pole that goes inside their jacket sleeve, actually slid inside their trousers. Very clever. Once unveiled, they became a magnet for small children. Two little Japanese boys obediently trotted to the side of one of them when he beckoned, his mask smiling as he invited their father to take photos. But behind the mask I knew he was scowling still. And they were so trusting. So that's how it's done. Very disturbing.

After Rembrandt it was the National Portrait Gallery, one of my favourite places. While I was there I checked out Grayson Perry's Who Are You display. Very interesting, very clever, but it is the portraits of Victorian politicians, early 20th-century literary figures, and famous and infamous women that always draw me in. It's extraordinary to witness these insights into their characters, so revealing and so intimate. I saved my absolute favourite to the end - James Joyce by Jacque-Emile Blanche - and what do you know? One of the many, far too many, groups of schoolchildren who swarmed all over the gallery was sitting on the ground in front of the painting. They were sketching something, urged on loudly by one of their teachers. Their age seemed to be around seven. And they paid no attention to the fact that they were inhibiting my pilgrimage. I teetered on the edge of this sprawling group, leaning in dangerously to get a better look at JJ, and they took no notice. I must admit to a spot of mild irritation; wouldn't they have been just as well served sketching back at school, or in their local town hall which must have some paintings of dignitaries? Was visiting the NPG at that age really so vital for their education? Or was it just a jolly for their teachers?

Academe

I had a wonderful weekend in Cambridge, the absolute antithesis of country life (I can't even say village life because I'm rapidly coming to realise that there isn't really any here). It's extraordinary, having everything you could possibly want - and a lot you probably never would - right on your doorstep. We shopped, we brunched with a BBC Young Thinker, we re-visited old movies, and I finished up with choral evensong at Kings. Better than Metatone and Floradix put together. Not cheaper though.

My Tower of London poppy pic at last

Back home, the leaves were thicker on the ground but those still hanging on are a beautiful mix of duster, lime drops, toast, labrador and Marigold rubber gloves - well I never said I was a poet! Everything is so late, and shrubs and perennials are being tricked into thinking it's spring and are starting to sprout. I have a burgeoning azalea in a pot on the terrace that may well come to a sticky end once the weather really changes. Thinking of that - ice, freezing winds, snow, sub-zero temperatures - I decided to check the level in the oil tank. The normal gauge doesn't work, so I polished my tallest bamboo cane and thrust it in. It seems to be more than half full, so all my self-sacrificing economies are paying off. It's considerably cooler now, though, and the Rayburn will be on most days in future. I can live with a cold bedroom since the only time I go in there is to get into an electric blanket-heated bed. I don't need to heat the other rooms unless I'm actually using them. But the hub of my house is the kitchen, and that has to be warm and cosy. Bugger the cost.

In The Pink

A woman in a pink anorak leading a small Jack Russell just walked past my house! I know! It's a first! I get cyclists sometimes, large jolly groups chatting away in pairs or trios. I hear them way down the lane on still, warm days, the men discussing seriously the marvels of their bicycle gears, the women laughing their heads off at the absurdity of what someone said, or did. I'm on a cycle route, so this is not infrequent. Otherwise I get tractors towing massive farm machinery according to the season, and occasional huge lorries carrying chilling loads of livestock; the school bus goes by twice a day - I could set my watch by its passage (pity the poor tardy schoolchild); and cars, from time to time. Horses often clipclop past then tuck into the field beside me for a brisk canter. But walkers? Almost never. Who was she? I didn't see her return, and recognised neither her nor the dog. All answers on a postcard please.

And then blow me down with a waft of hot air from the Rayburn's extractor fan if another person didn't walk past not an hour later! What is this, Oxford Street? He was a tall, youngish man dressed all in yellow heavy weather gear, and as he passed my house he tucked into the field like the horses and walked along the inside of the hedge. I was just going out, so my antennae twitched. Who could he be? Was he in cahoots with the pink lady, both of them camouflaged as normal people but really burglars? As I drove slowly past I squinted through the thinning hedge to see where he was. Then I spotted him, crouching down beside a telegraph pole with a large bag open in front of him. And there was his van at the end of the lane, an official looking one with a logo. BT, Open Reach, call it what you will. Danger over, for now. But I hope they don't make a habit of this. Anyone would think I lived on a public thoroughfare.

Show It Like It Is

Just some pictures of yesterday's minor improvements. They may be small, but they are mine own. Now I must decide whether or not to paint the bare fencing beyond the woodshed a nice subtle shade of green. It's a bit bright at the moment, though the lovely variegated evergreen ivy with its bright leaves, and the solanum crispum Glasnevin next to it will surely have covered quite a lot of it by next year. There will also be a yellow rose climbing up the woodshed, all being well. And please god it won't be too cold a winter and there'll still be some logs left in the spring.

Bins on a plinth

View From the Bottom

And Another One ...

Paint It Black

Gloaming

A most productive day. It was unusually dry, no overnight rain to clog the beds with mud and add inches to my height in wellies. I started by painting black the outside of the woodshed's corrugated iron in keeping with the other outbuildings. Then I moved on to building a brick base for my bins. Being brick rich, I only had to remove a pile from the shed and take them round to the front, where I had raked back the stones and made the ground flat. I'm very pleased with the result. I trimmed the hedge back a bit but there is definitely not room for all three bins, so the smaller one can have a home elsewhere in the garden. After all it is the garden refuse bin. Then I moved all the really old bricks that had sat on the path outside the shed to the inside, and swept everything clean. It all looks much better now. It's the tweaking and touching up and tidying that is so pleasing, and that makes all the difference. It's all in the detail. Then I gathered up all the rotten planks that used to form vegetable beds, all the non-biogradeable garden detritus, plus three blinds, an old printer of Kitty's, some huge cardboard boxes that I couldn't flatten, and the old postbox. Into the car they went, and off to the council tip with them. Oh, the satisfaction as I hurled the last object into a container and put the car back together again.

Back home again in the gloaming, I put the shopping into the house but couldn't resist a walk. It's a magical time, with the stars just beginning to come out, and the last few birds unable to refrain from a final song or two before bedtime. Bats swung and wheeled in the sky, and the smell of woodsmoke was in the air. The dark shape of the church loomed up behind a bank of yews, ghostly in the diminishing light but oddly friendly too. But I was wearing dark clothes and had no torch, a danger to and from the odd passing vehicle, so reluctantly I turned home. I had a last look around -  I'm so glad I had the drive done properly - and went inside. More delicious jobs await me in the garden tomorrow. Sheer bliss.

Snape

It was the party for Snape volunteers tonight, and how proudly I wore my name badge with Aldeburgh Music stamped under my monicker. But the only other person wearing one was my friend Sammie, old campaigner of as many art exhibition invigilations as me. We strutted, we pouted, we posed, we bragged and we gloated, and next year EVERYONE has to wear theirs too. What goodie goodies we were, teacher's pets. "Oh I wish I'd worn mine," they all wailed. "I meant to tell them all to wear them," said the Boss. Brownie points showered upon us from music heaven. It was a great party, the most amazing food and decent wines too. We met the new uberboss, ex Radio 3 Controller Roger Wright, not a patch on the gorgeous, the utterly delectable Jonathan Reekie whom he's replaced (this picture doesn't do him justice, but phwaorrr anyway) but a decent enough cove.

On the way home I stopped off to see my bridge partner Helen who's been suffering from flu for nearly two weeks. Pink nose, squidgy eyes, puffy cheeks, croaky voice, but she insisted on hugging me. Are you still infectious, I asked nervously, and she said probably, and hugged me again. Oh, I've missed our bridge. She's completely outrageous, our Helen, doesn't care what she says or what effect it has on people, but she makes me laugh like nobody else. Get well soon Helen, for God's sake!

No, Really?

I'm not a geeky sort of person. Technology is something I don't naturally understand. Written instructions for anything from setting the PVR to record a series of upcoming TV programmes to changing the clock on the microwave might as well be written in Chinese. I never read them. I'd rather break the gadget than sit down and calmly work out how to make it function. If pressing every button and hoping for the best doesn't work, somebody has to demonstrate its use to me. But even I, technophobe that I am, could have made a simple mobile phone with integral camera connect to a computer, especially as both are the product of Microsoft. Have they never heard of a USB port, a connecting cable? Cannot Bluetooth, with which both devices are fitted, magically transfer the photos to the PC? No.

And so my lovely, moving pictures of the poppies at the Tower of London will never appear on this blog. Nor will my close-up of Boris Johnson's thinning blond thatch, viewed from the parapet above as he strolled his thoughtful way below me, be shown. I went, I saw, I cannot share. Alas and alack. I should have stuck to the 99p upgrade to my old phone instead of forking out the giant sum of £14.95. Nokia 220 - you are rubbish!!

Now You're Talking

I've finally got a beautiful drive, thanks be to God. Lovely long-haired Richard turned up with his load of stones and delicately shovelled them into place. At one point this morning I had no fewer than three people working in the garden: as well as Richard there was Tim the fencing man who put up the extra trellis panel to screen the oil tank, and also erected a post to support my Calycanthus Occidentalis (I think); and Val who planted several dozen wallflower plants, an ivy, a lavender to pair with the lovely present I got a few months ago, and a rose. Good morning's work all round. I know the mole will be listening, but I'm extremely pleased with how the garden is coming on. Another few seasons and it will be a whole lot better. Just Did to come and cut down the hedge when the leaves have all fallen, and that's the end of my large outdoor projects, fingers crossed.

Bootiful

An unexpected job lurked this afternoon, definitely an indoor one. A few years ago I bought three pairs of moleskin trousers from the House of Bruar, in a size 14. At the time I was a big 12, the wrong side of eight and a half stone, and I decided in a fit of pragmatism that I would probably get bigger, not smaller. Hence the baggy pantaloons. But wouldn't you just know it, instead of growing I shrank, quite a lot. Result: enormous trousers, not a bit flattering, and which I hardly ever wore. A few weeks ago I happened to follow a Range Rover along the Fram road from Sax, and advertised around it's spare wheel was the name and phone number of a seamstress working from Swaffham. So I brought the trousers to her and she took them in. End of story? No. When I tried then on back at home they were all far too tight. I saw the funny side, and fell about laughing, not. I daren't take them back because, in all honesty, I've been a bit of a glutton in the two weeks since I saw her, and have probably put on several pounds. And so I've set to letting them out again. Luckily she did double seams, and the second, looser one seems good enough to hold. Sometimes I could give myself a good hard kick, but I'd probably fall over and one broken leg at a time in the family is quite enough.

Wall to Wall Sunshine

It was supposed to be wet and windy, but surprise surprise! there was not a cloud, not a whisper of a breeze. A man with a wet finger in the air could foretell the weather better than the Met Office sometimes. And so we went to Aldeburgh and schlepped along the beach right at the edge of the incoming tide. We headed towards Thorpeness, but this was no route march. Instead we pithered along, studying the pebbles and stones, trying again and again to find perfectly flat ones for skimming on the water. My very first one bounced five times, but thereafter I only managed a few doubles, most of my stones disappearing under the frothy waves. My companion fared no better. But she made me laugh. What time is high tide, she asked me? Well, it varies every day doesn't it, I replied. Half an hour on in the morning, another half hour later in the evening, and on and on. Really, she said? I thought it was always at the same time.

We walked smartly back along the track overtaking very old people, people in wheelchairs, toddlers. But every dog we passed had to be acknowledged and fussed over. Animal lovers are like this. It doesn't matter how mangy the creature, how ugly or misshapen, they all matter. The mole so cleverly dispatched by Sid was brought up, my ethical position discussed. I didn't stand a chance. What's a garden full of molehills compared to the life of one of god's creatures? Well, don't ask me. You know what I think.

Show and Tell

I have a new mobile phone with a camera. My bloggin' will be transformed. At least it will be when my weekend visitor comes and shows me how to activate Bluetooth on my computer and transfer pictures across. Anything rather than try to make sense of the instructions myself.

Arrived home too late on Wednesday to see what the drive looked like after four days away, and it was raining, but next morning I could see it hadn't improved. Gritty stuff gets stuck to the shoes and transported onto the terrace which is horrible. I think a layer of stones will be the answer, and in the meantime I'm going to stay chilled about it. It's only a drive.

I had a fabulous day in the garden, weeding and raking my big shrub bed which had sprouted lots of green stuff in my absence. It was quite back-breaking but very satisfying. The day was warm, sunny, still and almost completely silent apart from when Sarah's nieces and nephews came to visit her across the lane. After hours of weeding I suddenly remembered that the evenings are much shorter now, and if I was going to get the lawn mowed I'd need to get a shufty on. That's the first time the full implications of the clocks going back really hit me. Bloody waste of good gardening time. So I mowed and mowed, up and down, emptying the grass every second run because it was wet and very heavy. This morning I can see that an animal has nested overnight in the temporary heap I stacked at the bottom of the garden. Hope it's not Ratty.

I was absolutely on my knees by the time I finished the lawn, but I still had the terrace to power wash. Mud and drive grit had made it messy, and there was no leaving it for another day. And so I set to, one of the best outdoor jobs there is. Result? Everywhere tamed for now, neat, gleaming, lovely. And so to bath.