The more it goes on -

The wind did eventually get up, and by nine yesterday evening it was rattling the windows, as we settled down to watch Shetland: durham_rambler's struggle down the garden path with the rubbish having tipped the scales against the pub quiz. Likewise, he decided against this morning's meeting - the 9 o'clock start was also a deterrent. Again, the milk arrived promptly (well done, that milkman!). The paper was a little late, and when he picked it up, durham_rambler noticed that the next door neighbours had put out their recycling for collection. This follows the advice on the Council website: put it out, we'll get there sooner or later..., so we have done likewise, though I'm expecting that to be later rather than sooner.

We are negotiating with our weekend guest: watch this space.

According to the calendar, today is...

According to the Met Office, today, 1st March 2018 is the first day of the meteorological spring. Should we sit out on the patio, and enjoy it?

Maybe not. Not my patio, by the way, but my next door neighbour's, photographed from my bedroom window, because I loved the symmetrically sculpted pile of snow on the seat, the perfect dome on the little table...

According to the internet (and other sources) today is World Book Day. Not in this household, obviously, where every day is book day, but still, in honour of World Book Day, an extract which took my fancy from the book I am currently reading (Patrick O'Brian, The Surgeon's Mate):

She said, "That was a very curious coincidence, the Hotel d'Arpajon, was it not?"

"Prodigious," said Stephen. "And yet in a way one might say that the whole of life is a tissue of prodigious coincidences: as for example that at the very moment we attempt to cross the road this particular coach and six should come by; yet though extremely unlikely, it is a fact. And the glabrous face within belongs to Monsieur de Talleyrand-Périgord." Stephen took off his hat: the glabrous face returned his bow. "It is a most improbable coincidence that as we enter La Mothe's courtyard, and it is just here, on the right - take care of the excrement, Villiers - some merchant should walk into his counting-house in Stockholm, or that Jack Aubrey should mount his horse to pursue the fox. Though now I come to think of it, Jack would scarcely pursue the innocent fox at this time of the year: yet the principle remains. You may object that the overwhelming majority of these coincidences are undetected, which is eminently true; but they are there for all that, and as I raise this knocker, some man in China breathes his last."