A very good day

In fact yesterday was too good a day to blog on. Jane pulled back the curtain on a cloudless blue sky. I didn't exactly leap out of bed, though you might say I did spiritually. It's extraordinary how external factors can affect us sophisticated creatures, but on Facebook in the UK there's been general rejoicing.

For me there was the double bonus of my ear-syringing appointment. 'You've got wax, in both ears?' asked the nurse, adding sceptically. 'Have you had them examined?' 'No, but I've had it before,' I said. 'I'd better have a look,' said she, taking her otoscope and peering down my right (better) ear. 'Ooh, yes!' she said eloquently and satisfyingly. 'You have, haven't you?' A new self-calibrating pump has replaced the inflated icing syringe they used when I last had it done, with water at the right pressure and temperature. And so my ears were unstopped. The upshot is I now once again inhabit the world of 3D hi-fi sound. And I'm so grateful. I can hear the traffic, and also birdsong, and music, and of course, best of all, my wife's every word. I hope I shan't forget what a weird and frustrating world people with impaired hearing inhabit, with no easy cure ahead of them.

In the afternoon Jane worked in the garden, while I sat in the conservatory. There was a bonanza of butterflies: two commas, a tortoiseshell, a yellow brimstone, a red admiral and a peacock (these photos are courtesy of © Cathy McKinty and © Peter Eeles). I think brimstones are the first butterflies of spring; and we've never seen a comma with its ragged scalloped wings so close up. One came and landed on the conservatory door blind. Meanwhile in the conservatory we've had an Old Lady moth, which apparently overwinter in porches and similar places.

At about 4 we went down to the Coop for some milk, and then made a tour of the whole of the close. We reckon we live in the nicest part and in the best house! Anyway we have a great sense of contentment with everything. The only spoiler on a great day was when we sat down to watch the rom com Fifty First Dates, which I'd recorded on the digibox - only to find halfway through it had been interrupted by the news and the second half wasn't there!! Doh! We knew the ending, but it was a bit of an anticlimax, though not enough really to spoil the day.