I thought this morning that maybe I was  “feeling tired” which is one of the possible side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to the leaflet they gave me, and Helen had a busy morning anyway so we would have had to zip around the garden fast, and as a result we stayed in. I’ve done 941 steps, which at least provides us with a baseline for days on which I do nothing but shuffle about and cook a simple lunch. My arm feels perfectly normal, to such an extent that I wonder whether I’ve had a vaccine at all.

 

I did a bit more knitting. Only one scallop to go before the edging of Gudrun’s hap goes around its second corner.

 

James rang up. No news, really. His wife Cathy is thoroughly recovered from her second does of COVID. Neither has been vaccinated yet – he a type 1 diabetic, she asthmatic. He’s enjoying working from home – and he couldn’t go to China anyway, in the circumstances. He has never been away so long, in his adult life. Their younger daughter Kirsty is at home, pursuing her Oxford career digitally. It’s rotten luck, for her and thousands of others. She worked so hard to get there – and now university is a laptop in the bedroom.

 

Reading

 

I’ve gone on with Tomalin on Austen. She has done a wonderful job of conjuring up the extended family and the village, to the extent that you scarcely miss direct information about Jane in the early chapters. I have given up trying to keep the characters straight. All the men in the family are named Edward, and the women either Jane or Elizabeth.

 

I like the idea of your book group, Mary Lou. I suppose we have something like that here.

 

I didn’t try to listen to “Mansfield Park”, Shandy, partly for not knowing how to reach Radio 4 Extra on my radio – but I suppose I could have managed that; mostly for preferring it as it plays in my head. Thank you very much for the thought. How was it?