Day 3

Another beautiful day and as my bike is still with Ken (he is deep cleaning it too) I decided to walk along the river into Henley again and pick up some shopping – I genuinely do not know how people manage on 1 grocery shop a week. Our fridge (and it is a large one) could not hold the amount of food required to keep the boys happy for 7 days. It is like living with a plague of locusts.

The river bank was glorious and teeming with new life – goslings everywhere. Geese, I have decided, are much better parents than ducks, who are lackadaisical at best. If you ever have to choose, come back as a goose not a duck, the odds of surviving to adulthood are much higher, based on parenting alone.

Nick dragged himself out of bed to come and collect me from my Waitrose experience, largely because I was bearing lunch. As a reward for my endeavours I allowed myself some time with my book in the sun. The first book of my furlough leave is now finished – worth a read, a good page turner. I managed to avoid the usual frightening shade of pink and even remembered to do half an hour lying on my front, no two tone legs for me this year.

Diane popped in after work for a socially distanced G&T (or 2) and so ended a very civilised day. I was in charge of the evening meal (which I managed to produce on time and in order, much to the boys’ relief) as Catering was back on the river bank fishing. He had booked a day down in Hampshire on the Loddon and had been worried he would not be able to go due to lockdown restrictions, but the recent relaxation of the rules relating to fishing meant he gleefully skipped off again, to stand by the water all day. Anglers are a lot like farmers – they are never happy with the weather, apparently it was too hot, nothing was rising and he worked really hard (I mean really hard) to catch one small trout (now in freezer) all day. He returned red-faced (despite factor 50 and a hat) and exhausted and I think was less then impressed with the lack of sympathy he got.