The extent of the week of storms is only now beginning to be realised. The enormous Cedar of Lebanon at Castle Hill which has stood since 1790 is on its side. The gardens are shut as is Hoyle’s Wood and Long Walk. The Oak tree behind the next-door cemetery is also on its side, and some slates on the church have been dislodged. On Saturday morning you could hear chainsaws and chippers in Spa Wood. There are no nearby walks to take Reggie on except thankfully our paddocks and the recently cleared valley.

I keep on finding odd bits of slate around the garden. The ivy attached to our large Copper Beech which five years ago I had stupidly tried to pull down and ended with a frozen shoulder, has now disappeared. Did the 20+ feet of dead ivy just break-up and fly away, the ivy’s stem was at least 2 inches across?

The week has been dominated by the Ukraine war which started on the 24th of February. By the end of the week and before Victoria arrived back for the weekend, I began to realise that the news was beginning to have a negative effect. I knew that I had been looking at BBC News and listening to the radio a lot, and you don’t escape from the news when you are on LinkedIn. Anyway, I’ve decided for the week ahead I will keep to the time limits I had imposed on myself for the BBC, and LinkedIn sites. I won’t isolate myself from what is going on, but I’ll certainly limit my exposure time.

With the missing slates in the stable block roof courtesy of the week of storms, I had hoped for a dry March and April, I think I wished too early because it was raining for most of the week until the weekend, not floods, but enough to soak the floor in a few places. Victoria went up to inspect the stable loft, which is boarded, and said it wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. She confirmed that there is definitely an owl present because there are three large piles of pellets, we think it is the barn owl that you occasionally see around.

Wednesday this week was the start of Lent, and I had agreed with Polly that we would do our normal diet for this period, so no chocolate, crisps, biscuits, nuts, fizzy drinks, cake, and ice cream for me, with a few allowed exceptions, for example, if I make my own cake. Why am I doing this? Really, I’ve no idea, to lose a bit of weight that will go straight back on after Easter, detox, just to prove to myself I can, who knows? I asked Victoria whether she had spoken to Polly about the diet, because last time when we were both going to diet between 1st September and Christmas, she forgot the following day, and then didn’t tell me until the end of October when I was more than halfway through. I kept it going through to Christmas Eve and developed a massive craving for Twiglets in December that year.

I didn’t play bridge this week, Alan was away Tuesday and the risk of catching Covid after the weekend of North Devon Bridge Congress must have been heightened. To cap off a miserable few days I toiled for several hours trying to renew Vic’s (Victoria’s Dad, aka Grampy) car insurance, only to save a miserable £16. At 88 it might be his last year of driving.

I started to build myself a new website for ‘The Diary of a Digital Nobody’. I’ve built two blog post pages, one for My 2022 Diary and the other My Podcast Journey, with graphic banners developed on Canva. All the posts for both pages, 8 weeks for each, have been proofread and published. I hope to go live with the website next week, the only thing left to do is build out a home page and find a suitable photo for it.

I’ll then start to add some photos to the My 2022 Diary posts and copy over the posts I had previously written on Paperback Secrets. In the following weeks I’ll start to add other pages turning the whole into my digital scrapbook. Various recipes for pies, ice creams, cakes, and cocktails, what I liked about them, what I didn’t, or how it might be improved next time. A page for the garden flowers that are in bloom during the week. Bridge notes, perhaps even notes I’ve tucked away about our ancestry from both Victoria’s side and mine.

I created a second podcast logo for ‘The Diary of a Digital Nobody’ and then published an article on the P2 community site asking for ‘Your Second Honest Opinion’. Tanya provided feedback, I’m not sure she liked it, but she had made some constructive comments that will require me to do some research, and perhaps some tweaking. The more I look at the podcast logo, the more I like it, whether I will feel the same in two weeks we’ll have to wait and see. Victoria liked it, and she would say if she didn’t.

Victoria and Reggie returned late Thursday night, and we had Pog (Victoria’s brother) and Grampy around for dinner Friday. I couldn’t help giving Pog an update on the podcasting, I’m sure he was bored while being polite. He said he liked the podcast logo.

Saturday morning was sunny with little wind and we both did 4 hours gardening in the morning. I’ve started my hands and knees weeding of the flower beds with a focus on the adjacent gravel paths. I still have 13 ton of granite to shift from the delivery we had in October. It will be used to add a layer over the top of the paths and driveway, it is the same stone, but it hasn’t been weathered for 10 years. This will require weeding the paths/driveway first. Anyway, I’ve started the section from the corner of the house, around the patio and down to the greenhouse. Some of the flower beds next to the house have not had any attention for many years, and there are some old crocosmia and bindweed that we want to pull-up.

Before lunch we took Reggie for a walk down the valley and back up the new hedge line. There isn’t much change, the hazel catkins are evident, a few primroses, but not yet in bloom, and a patch of what looks like some form of iris but too early to tell. Ferns are just breaking through, not more than half an inch, not much else has managed to grow its way through the thick mat of decomposing twigs. Most of the new hedge saplings planted last November are showing signs of buds that are about to break and some small green leaves are showing on the hawthorn, no flowers yet, I need to look out for the white flower of blackthorn in the coming weeks. I think we planted 11 different varieties, let’s hope they all make a success of it.

In the afternoon, we had a fruitless trip to the reclamation yard and then on for a walk in Appledore. I don’t believe I have been before and I’ve lived in North Devon since 2000, nearly 22 years now. It must have been a thriving fishing community once. It is very pretty, several narrow streets, and the one that goes out to the lifeboat house has terraced houses in many pastel shades. Great for a photo, if I could work out how to manage the bright blue sky against the pastel shadows. We got lost trying to work a short cut back to the car park through the narrow lanes, seems there are quite a few pubs or bars, too many to sustain a living I would have thought.

Saturday evening was spent booking a short break to Madrid in October half term and making sure that I had used some of the hotel points I had acquired before they expire, something to look forward to over the summer.

The week finished with another round on the West course with Peter. No lost ball for the fourth round, nothing worse than a double bogey, both a miracle. Out in 41 with 4 pars, then the wheels came off the cart for a return in 50, 11 over for the last 6 holes, and 7 strokes worse for the last 4 holes than last week. It was windy with chill factor, and I was wearing four layers, but that was not the excuse, bad attempts at chipping again. Then, on the return to the car I thought perhaps for chipping I need to go back to my old stance, perhaps a lesson would help.