Z judges by appearances

Just starting with an update about Andy and Gill - the insurance company finally agreed to pay up for the air ambulance.  Gill had to contact her solicitor, the Consulate and her MP to get results, however.  She had to sign a disclaimer, too - not because there is a pre-existing condition that they hadn't declared, but in case there's something that the GP knew about but hadn't flagged up to them.  The next problem was finding a hospital bed.  Neither of the two nearest hospitals here have a vacant bed in Intensive Care.  I don't know what's been sorted out there, whether he'll go to a different hospital or whether they'll sort it out when he arrives or what, but the return flight is now booked for Thursday.  Maybe there will be a bed locally by then - I'd have thought that the problem with a high dependency bed is that you can't always tell when it's likely to be needed or for how long.  Anyway, a couple more days and at least they will be back in this country.  We can only hope that the cause of the illness is soon found and can be treated successfully.

I arrived back home after lunch today and sat down in the drawing room to read the papers.  After an hour, I realised I was extremely cold.  The room wasn't that cold, must have been me.  In the end, I went and had a hot bath, and it took me about twenty minutes in it to warm up.  Very odd.  I'm okay now and don't feel as if I'm coming down with anything.  Actually, it was really cold this morning, I think it was the coldest night yet.  It took me four attempts to defrost the windscreen, as it kept freezing over again, and this was at 10 am.  The chickens are quite all right, and we are getting the odd egg again - that is, one on Saturday and one today, which isn't that much between 30 of them, but shows willing.  The cock pheasant is often to be seen keeping watch across the field, standing on a pile of logs.  He's a very good guardian.  We're going to have to get another cockerel next year, or at least some eggs to set under a broody hen, as many of them are getting a bit elderly, we keep them for their natural lifespan.  It will put the pheasant's beak rather out of joint, I'm afraid.

I'm sorry, this is no end dull tonight.  I feel dull, boring and slightly irritable.  This last isn't like me, but I've had to make an effort to be polite and patient with the Sage all evening and he\s done nothing wrong - well, not a great deal...  I will be in a meeting with someone who may well be pretty irritating tomorrow morning, it'll be quite in order for me to be sharp if necessary, but not bad-tempered, obviously.

Anyway.  Hm.  I've been reading the Forsyte Saga (I typed Sage, couldn't help it!) on my phone the last few nights.  When awake in the early hours, I tend to read something I've read before, that's quite easy to keep track of and not overly demanding.  Of late, this has included Sherlock Holmes, Mark Twain and Jane Austen (I note that I wrote the character rather than the author in the first of these, but then he was the common character in all the books of Conan Doyle that I read).  Rereading a book always gives a different reaction in some way, I find, or else I notice something new - I was struck, as I hadn't been when I read it before, years ago, by the statement that "Soames was a great novel reader".  He's not been mentioned picking up a book to read for pleasure, only his reaction to those he has read - which seem mostly romantic ones, and that seemed a bit unlikely.  Just coming up to the Bosinney/Irene crisis.  I was unable to watch the tv dramatisation of a few years ago, because the girl who played Irene looked so wrong.  It wasn't only that she was dark-haired rather than blonde, but that she was too thin - I dunno, I don't quite know why it jarred so with me, but now I do reread it, I see that thinness is often referred to disparagingly, and it's quite clear that Irene's figure was both full and slender, not at all angular.  Of course, the girl may have been splendid in the part.  I'll never know.