March 9th - Local fields

Seem to have recovered almost completely from yesterday’s brief excursion into the real world (although it’s not something I’ll take so lightly again!) and spent today working like a dervish – a sedentary cerebral dervish – until noon when I picked the diddy men up from nursery. Anna had gone for the day to Peebles for coffee with an old Langbank buddy. Collected Hamu from the bus at 3 o’clock and took them all to the park in Kelso. Bitterly cold wind, so we lasted about half an hour then scurried into the nearby Lidl to warm up and buy apple-juice and cakes.

Released from child-minding duties at 5 by Anna and I nicked out for a steady half hour around the fields before dinner. Legs heavy again, but had an enjoyable trundle in lovely evening sunshine. Had a scowling match with a broken-nosed game-keeper who didn’t like the look of Anooshka running free-range so close to his pheasant pens. He followed 10m behind me for the last mile, willing the dog to step out of line, but she did me proud.