Monday 10 August:

My regular dawn walk again today… when I set out, it felt as if it was going to be a quite a dramatic dawn but, strangely, it just petered out into a bit of a bright-but-cloudy start. Very enjoyable nevertheless.

We had an engineer booked to come and look at the washing machine, so the routines for our day were rather dictated by this. In the event, it seems that the equivalent of the ‘motherboard’(?) needs replacing and that, according to the engineer, it’s not cost-effective to replace/repair it (although, to be fair to him, he’s going to do the sums and let us know). So, not good news!

As you might imagine, we both have a certain backlog of washing and therefore I spent part of the afternoon washing shirts etc in the bath (and getting them out on the washing line before the predicted thundery showers!). Needless to say (given the lack of sunshine and wind), the clothes were still damp at the end of the day.

Read more of my ‘Princess Bride’ book (enjoyable, funny, and slightly weird – I’m approaching being half way though and still can’t make up my mind.

On Moira’s recommendation, I watched “Surviving the virus: my brother and me” (twin brothers Chris and Xand van Tulleken, both doctors, share their personal and professional experiences of Covid-19)… hugely informative, humbling and moving. Really excellent.

The pork joint provided us with another good meal (and there’s probably another meal in the leftovers!?). Nothing really worth watching on TV apart from ‘University Challenge’!
Image: Marina+passing pigeons (not such a bad dawn afterall!).