saturday 18 december...

Alice+Dan staying for the weekend, so I slept in the main bedroom – but not very well! Fetched the newspaper first thing.
Ursa is TEN today (how did that happen?)!
Dan and I went to Spicer+Cole for breakfast (which was lovely), followed by a walk home via the harbour.
Most of the rest of the morning spent ‘chilling’… before soup lunch.
Another awful day for the England cricket team in Oz… and the Villa game was postponed due to Covid tests.
M+A+D went walking on Brandon Hill in the afternoon.
Ru+Stu+Iris+Rosa round for supper later (very lovely!).
Image: more candles from the balcony. 

Friday 17 December:

Busy start to the day… with the need to change bedding, sort out refuse etc in advance of Alice+Dan’s weekend visit.
Everything more or less sorted by 8.30am.
Megan+Adam also visiting Bristol today… they arrived by 10.30am and, after checking out our apartment, we ended up at the Society Café for catch-up chat. I pointed out to M+A some of the basic things they might want to see during their quick-fire trip (but actually it seems that the focus would be on Christmas shopping!).
Alice+Dan arrived about 12.45pm… lovely to see them.
Brief ‘familiarising local walk’ after lunch for A+D’s benefit.
Megan+Adam rejoined us at 5pm and we sat sharing memories etc… which was nice. M+A left just after 6pm. Hannah joined us for supper at 6.30pm (Ursa not feeling well, so she and Felix stayed at home).
Lovely, gentle evening (slightly frustrated that I took pics of D+A+H, but later discovered the memory stick was still in the laptop!
Image: candles from the balcony. 

Thursday 16 December:

Back to the ‘normal’ laptop early morning routine… relieved that thus far there haven’t been any huge issues (but no doubt there will be some).
Went to M+S first thing to buy some provisions (wine, crackers, cereal – even if I did make a stupid error of buying red instead of white!). Walking past College Green, an ambulance helicopter landed... plus there were 2 other ambulances, a incident unit vehicle plus 2 police cars (lots of blue flashing lights!). Don't know the reason...
Much of the rest of the day involved general tidying and cleaning in preparation for the weekend.
Had intended to watch ‘Wonderful Life’, but I think I must have lent the DVD to Ru? So, instead watched a fascinating documentary by David Baddiel about social media.
Evening telly: ‘Montalbano’
Image: morning sky through the living room window.

  

Wednesday 15 December:

Another somewhat complicated day…
Bloke’s Prayer first thing (sitting outside – cold, but not too cold), attended by Robin, Dave, Dru and Jeff.
Lewis, the plumber, returned to sort out the flush on Moira’s loo.
Then responded to Compuwave’s early morning text message to say my laptop was ready for collection… caught a ferry across to the SS Great Britain and walked to the shop… returned on the bus.
Spent the afternoon (somewhat predictably!) catching up on my laptop and trying to work out the mysteries of Windows10!
Also wrote up my latest book blog.
Evening telly: ‘Portrait’ and 'Between The Covers'.
Image: freasias (bought yesterday). 

Tuesday 14 December:

Complicated day (well, morning at least)…
Electrician arrived at 8am to replace the immersion heater console.
I’d ordered some freasias from Roots and remembered to collect them!
Met up with Mike Levine at the Old Vic for coffee+cake at 10.30am (sadly, he’d forgotten he was on a fast, so he watched me eat and drink!)… but good to see him nonetheless.
Travelled on to Compuwave in Southville (took my rather poorly laptop)… ended up buying a re-conditioned replacement (£299) and Andy agreed to transfer my various folders etc. It’ll be Windpws10, so fingers crossed that I’ll cope!!
Then on to Storysmith to collect some previously-ordered books (and buy another one). I eventually decided to opt out of the Storysmith Christmas party in the evening (too many people in a confined space?).
Finished my ‘Essex Girls’ book.
Second batch of Si Smith prints arrived!
Watched ‘The Jackal’ film on catch-up telly.
Evening telly: another ‘Walk’ and first episode of ‘Vienna Blood’.
Image: Si’s print drop#2

Monday 13 December:

Up early reading in the living room. 
Am enjoying the ‘Christmas’ coffees that Ana gave me.
Essentially a day of ticking stuff off my to-do lists: messaging Charlotte+Alice; posting our Christmas card on facebook; messaging the plumber; phoning the electrician etc.
Moira chatted to Alice about her (and Dan’s) prospective at the weekend… and about doubts given the latest Covid variant.
Emailed Storysmith to back out of their bookgroup party tomorrow night (just a little wary of gathering in groups at the present time).
Moira went into town on a mini-Christmas present shopping expedition in the afternoon.
My Lateral Flow Test pack duly arrived in this morning’s post (only applied for it online yesterday) – but the Guardian reports that they’ve run out of test kits (which seems quite ridiculous, knowing that demand would be huge with Christmas/New Year gatherings pending).
Evening zoom: with Alan, David and Keith… which went well.
Image: another one of my Toledo sketches.

Sunday 12 December:

Fetched the newspaper first thing after breakfast… then needed to be at Saint Stephen’s early as ‘Welcomer’ and also reading one of the bible passages.
I have to say that I came away from church feeling pretty depressed… I thought Chris Harrigan’s ‘talk’ was very poor… and long… and meandering… and lacking focus. At a time when I’m already struggling spiritually, his talk was what I DIDN’T need!
I’m very much missing the old intimacy and informality of the ‘old’ Saint Stephen’s.
Back home for lunch and then ‘virtual’ urban sketching in Toledo (just six of us, but rather lovely).
Evening telly: another ‘Winter Walk’ and ‘Antiques’… then to be to continue with my Osman book.
Image: one of my Toledo sketches.