These delays made me half an hour late for my next appointment, so then had to wait an hour for the next available slot. Consequently I was half an hour late for my subsequent event and didn’t have dinner until gone 10:00. And I’ve been playing catch-up ever since.

I bought two toys last weekend – a bicycle and a cultivator. I chose a hybrid bicycle so I can do a bit of off-road cycling and cycled it home along the byways and bridle paths. It was great fun.

I bought the cultivator separately as it was too big to fit on the bike. It’s only a small electric-powered one, but just the right size for digging over CGF’s garden – which I did in the evening. Much quicker and less back-breaking than a spade - especially when the ground is full of roots.

Once the digging was done I planted potatoes and runner beans, tomatoes and raspberries - and made a frame for the runner beans to climb. I also planted some courgettes in a seed tray at home and they’ve started to sprout already. So they will need planting out soon. And just to finish off, I cut the grass.

Saturday morning CGF sand I wandered into town. Mario the ice cream man was there and we contemplated getting an ice cream. “No, we haven’t got younglings with us who we can use as an excuse for ice cream” we decided. Then walked about ten paces before deciding “oh stuff it, let’s have an ice cream anyway”.

Part of the shopping trip was for me to buy a new pair of shoes. I first tried the main shoe shop, but have to say, the assistant was spectacularly useless.

First I had to wait for far too long before she looked up from her tablet and saw that I was waiting to be served. They didn’t have my first choice of shoe in my size, and my second only in brown. Now, any sales person worth their salt would have offered me something similar. I only wanted a pair of smart black shoes and, let’s be honest, they only come in two styles: plain or patterned (and the pattern is always the same). So there is a pretty good chance that I would have been content with anything in my size. In fact, she could have come back from the store room with a different pair to the one I had asked for and I’d have been none the wiser. (Proof, if proof were needed, that I pay little attention to the fine details of my purchases can be gained from the fact that I later bought myself two PINK toothbrushes without noticing the colour).

But no, this assistant’s attitude was more of “we haven’t got what you asked for. End of”. So I went to the discount shoe store and bought both a pair of shoes and a pair of reinforced boots (for general DIY and gardening type activities) for less than the price of the shoe sin the original store.

In the evening we went to see an am-dram production of The Pirates of Penzance. This is the first G&S I’ve seen for a long, long time and I quite enjoyed it.

Of course, no evening of The Pirates of Penzance is complete unless you listen to this when you get home. It’s the law – or should be.

I followed this up with various other Tom Lehrer songs from YouTube. CS2 said “this guy’s really good – I’d like to see him live”. He was somewhat surprised when I pointed out that he probably wasn’t touring any more as the recording had been made in 1957!