I know, it’s tempting to say “well, what choice do we have?” to that. We’re fine here, we’ve had a couple of lovely weekends and “interesting” weeks, keeping busy doing…well, if not nothing, then not very much, that’s for sure.

I baked an 11 Carton Cake having come across it on a blog I read and thinking it sounded good. It was too! I was expecting a few Avening WI friends for the afternoon, who were coming over to talk books and share reading thoughts. Of course, normal WI meetings are off for the foreseeable future, so small groups of us get together in gardens to chat and enjoy a bit of company.

I hadn’t really read anything very exciting since the last time we met, still working my way through the Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon, so I gathered a few unread titles from my bookshelf in the hope that someone might have read them and persuade me to add them to my list! Instead, Shirley talked about Ysenda Maxwell Graham’s book about summer holidays which she kindly left for me to read, so it looks like Nancy Moon’s missing pieces might be a while before they’re found!

We had a lovely weekend with Amy and Edward, who had tickets for a garden tour at Highgrove It was the most beautiful day - perfect weather for such a visit - and we continued the fun with a great lunch at the Cat and Custard Pot in Shipton Moyne afterwards.

We drove home past Kemble airfield, where the British Airways 747s are parked, ready for whatever turns out to be their next fate. One thing is for sure, we’ll miss our adventures sitting in 61 A and B.

But in these Covid days we mostly stayed at home, just dropping into Miserden Nurseries to get some bulbs whilst we could.

Oh, and we also followed our usual autumn routine of starting the 2020 Sloe and Damson gin, too. We’re currently enjoying the 2013 Sloe gin and treasuring the last drops of the 2010 Damson, so there’s no hurry.

Here at home, I’ve been reliving our cruise of 2016, when we sailed from Copenhagen to Stockholm on board Voyager, our favourite ship. I’ve been sharing a few excerpts from my blog (we were in Helsinki four years ago today) with cruise friends and wondering when and where we’ll travel again.

For the time being, the furthest I go is to the pool every other day, generally finding that I swim further and for longer in these restricted times- perhaps there is some benefit to be had?

It certainly feels good to begin the day with a small achievement of some kind, at any rate. We just have to keep going, don’t we?