Sunday, November 10, 2019


A pretty good day, so far. I’ve knocked off my Dathan hap increases and my pages of Ferrante and finished “The Last Chronicle of Barset” and walked as far as the corner shop. I didn’t get into the sitting room last night, despite good intentions – but maybe I will this time. There’s an arty program from last week that I want to catch up on, and I’m earlier than usual, and I’ve eaten.

I watched the ceremony at the Cenotaph this morning. I wonder if I have ever done that before. It’s very affecting, and brilliantly staged. Mr Corbyn for all his politics was properly dressed – there was a famous occasion some years ago when a left-wing Labour leader (? Michael Foot) turned up in a donkey jacket.

At the very last moment I was looking anxiously at my watch because there didn’t seem to be time for the Royal Family to take their places. But there was, of course, and the very instant they had done so, Big Ben began to chime the hour. 

At Diana's funeral I was most impressed at the way her coffin was carried into the Abbey as Big Ben began to strike. It’s quite a long way from Kensington Palace to the Abbey. How long had they had to practice? Three days? Four? Neither hurrying nor standing around in the street would have been at all seemly.

Change of topic

My late lunch/early supper today was a vegetable stew based on some okra which turned up at the supermarket when I was putting in my order. (Things have really come to a pass when I am reduced to telling you about my diet.) My family is desperately keen on slowing climate change, and I am happy to think that I may never have to set foot in an airport again. I would hope to get to London for Ruby’s Christening – the newest great-granddaughter – but that can conveniently be done by train.

But what about exotic food? The okra came from India. Should one’s winter diet be all turnips and kale and delicious roast Brussels sprouts?

4 comments:

  1. Ar you being sarcastic about Brussels Sprouts? I hope not, you are talking about my most revered vegetable. Yes I know they are a marmite thing.
    As to history - it was aid at the time that the jacket that Mr Foot wore was an expensive bespoke one - just not the conventional style of the time. It was the way he wore it that made it look like a donkey jacket. His style was pretty much "scruffy professor".

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  2. Not sarcastic at all. I have always liked sprouts but have only recently discovered how delicious they are when roasted.
    That’s interesting about Mr Foot’s jacket.

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  3. I do find your reported diet interesting as it seems to confirm that you may be short on protein. Eggs, cheese, beans, fish, chicken breast... Though you were at least talking about mutton stew the other day. It seems impertinent to point this out, but meals for one can end up skewed in one direction or another.

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  4. I just harvested our Brussels Sprouts yesterday, amid snow flurries. We have had unseasonably cold temperatures this fall, and I kept hoping the sprouts would get bigger. They did, but not by much. At least there will be several meals worth. In my family we referred to them as cabbage balls, after one of the little ones called them that.

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