Highs and Hiyas

Hi there! It’s all the fault of email. I walk down to the village stores in the morning replying to the “Good Mornings” of passers-by with “Hi” or “Hi there” or, worse, “Hiya”. I find this rather distasteful but don’t seem able to stop myself. Having learnt how to send emails and text messages I seem to be stuck with this form of greeting. Long live those email correspondents who avoid the awful “Hi” and start off “Good Morning” or “Dear Ranting Nappa”. Having taught myself to say “Hi”, I’m just too old to change back.

One of the “highs” of 2005 so far was a long walk yesterday in the winter sunshine. I clambered up to the nearby South Downs Way and tramped for a mile or so looking down on my village below, whilst all the time being propelled forward by strong winds. Coming back down again was a different matter, slipping and sliding on a muddy path, negotiating fallen-down trees and blocked footpaths, and very nearly getting lost. But the end result was a feeling of achievement and general well-being rewarded by a couple of pints of London Pride in the local pub.

My 2005 resolutions are meeting with mixed success and failure. I’ve already had to apologise to the sister-in-law for my rudeness, and my quest for “new” has been stymied somewhat by my rediscovering Guy Crouchbank and his world in Men at Arms. I’d forgotten what a skilful writer Evelyn Waugh was and look forward to reuniting with Apthorpe (the thunderbox), Ritchie-Hook et al. over the coming weeks as I plough my way through the entire Sword of Honour trilogy … again. Next week, however, we are trying a different restaurant, and I have tested out a different gin (Heidricks – the cleverly marketed posh brand that you are meant to drink with cucumber instead of lemon). It’s not bad, but I’ll keep to the Gordons myself.

A final word of congratulation is for the cat. On Friday and throughout Saturday we feared the worse as the frail and elderly beast remained resolutely curled up in her basket, forsaking food, and looking as if she was passing gently into another world. Slowly she would make her one journey of the day to the gravel by my Jeep which serves as her traditional latrine, and early last evening she crept slowly through to the living room. Alerted by a paw being held off the ground, the wife discovered that a claw had inverted like an in-growing toenail and had more or less drilled completely through. An emergency call to the vet (who had to be wrested away from his Saturday supper and lottery results on TV), some work with clippers and antibiotics and, hey-ho, we have an active (though elderly) cat once more – although the wife had to fork out £79. Reminds me of Pam Ayres and her chicken.