Back to zero. Degrees that is. Centigrade. Celsius. Today is the day I (we) are going to prune the grape vine and apple trees. It is suitably cold but also dry which is the main concern. I am a fairweather pruner.
Today would also be a good day for a spot of winter golf, as long as you wrap up warm. I have no time for golf because I am pruning. And swimming, for which wrapping up warm is not applicable other than for the journey between the shed and Total Fitness. The car heating will just about have kicked in by the time I get to the pool. I turn it down as I get to the Doddington Road roundabout!
After breakfast and before the rest of the day begins I have a conference call! Eight Thirty. What on earth Tref, I hear you say. You are merely echoing my sentiments. It is nine thirty in Utrecht, which is where the bloke who arranged the call is sitting. This month will see me getting dangerously close to exceeding my three days a month limit on work. A self imposed ceiling based on the fact that they didn’t want me to go to zero but which does occasionally end up as four days. This is not something I keep a timesheet for but is based on a gut feel and the recording of various trips and dinners in my calendar. Most of it is trips and dinners. Not many in January as you might imaj.
The rest of the morning should see me tidying up a bit of ritin I’ve been working on for a while: A year in the life of Maesnonni farm in Carmarthenshire in the 1730s. Once this is done I will revisit it in the spring as some of the financial assumptions I have made need access to documents that are likely only to be found physically in the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.
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Conf call done. THG has donned her new vibrant leggings and is off to the gym. I need to get dressed and get on with the day. Not looked for any lakeside animal action yet but will report back if there is news.
Ciao bebes
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Our Tom is on radio 4. Having his hair cut. What you need to know about our Tom is he hasn’t got any hair. He shaves it off, being a trendy Londoner. He goes on from time to time as BBC Radio 2’s “special correspondent for miscellaneous affairs”. It was all about whether you should pay less for a haircut if you don’t have much hair. Tune in to Radio 2 from shortly after 1.30pm. You should be able to find it on BBC Sounds. It was a v funny piece fair play.
I got back from the pool just in time to catch it on the wireless. I did have it on in the car but at the time they were talking about home schooling, a subject about which I have no interest whatsoever so I waited until I got home before switching on again.
Definitely back in the groove with the swimming. Today there was someone in my fave lane so I got into the one next to it in anticipation of sliding across when she finished. They invariably exit the pool after five mins or so. Not today. This person went mechanically up and down doing alternate lengths of breast stroke and back stroke. Tbh I can’t complain. I did my thirty mins front crawl (I’m not yet allowed to do breast stroke pursuant to hiphop2 and prefer crawl anyway), ten mins in the hot tub and she was still swimming as I left for the showers. Fair play. Like a machine she was. Pleasing to observe that I am getting better at putting my left sock on, seeing daily improvements in this otherwise mundane task.
THG’s new leggings attracted favourable comment btw. Gotta have the right gear for the gym eh?
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Last input of the day. Spent an hour or so pruning the grapevine and clearing the surrounding trellis of ivy. Still some ivy left but it is difficult to completely get rid. I am optimistic that we will do better on the grape growing front this year having been given advice on spring pruning.