And suddenly it’s Thursday, and what have I done? On Monday I slumped. On Tuesday I had two vaccinations. I spent an hour in a pharmacy crowded with people because the appointments system had broken and we were over half an hour late going in. Many of the people looked ill, so I don’t know whether I am generally under the weather, suffering from the vaccinations, or caught something while I was there. O don’t usually react to vaccinations, though my arms were a bit sore after these, so it might be that. On the other hand it could be some sort of illness as it’s hanging around. And hanging over it all, last time I felt like this I ended up waking in the middle of the night with sepsis and ringing for an ambulance.

I try not to be a hypochondriac, or over-dramatic, but it’s stuck in my mind as a permanent worry now. Fortunately I know that as long as I get down there early enough it needn’t be too bad.

Recently we seem to have lost all our Goldfinches – we saw two last week, which were the first for a month, and we haven’t seen another one since. They are what is known as partial migrants. They don’t have  agreat drive to go, but depending on food and weather they may go to France, Spain and Belgium. I don’t know why Belgium is more attractive than the UK in winter, but that’s just how it is. I imagine we have others coming down from Scandinavia do ours have to move out to make room.

It seems that their main motivation is food. If they find a good food source they may just migrate a couple of miles, but if they can’t, they may do the full 900 mile trip to Spain.

So far, without a lot of thought or planning, I have managed to eat 24 sorts of plant this week, probably 24 or 25 if you include all the garlic and the spices. We will easily do 30 again by the end of the week and I have decided to stop counting. I’ve managed to hit target just by using our normal shopping, ingredients and menu, so I don’t see any point in making a  chore of it. I will check in a few months but it seems as if it will take care of itself.

In terms of acceptances, I am now on 48. It’s tempting to cut back and just coast in to the end of the year – 48 will do, 50 is just a psychological thing, However, at the back of my mind is the idea that this is where a real writer gets going and signs off with a flurry of activity. I have one more thing to send off this month – to a magazine that always wants progressive and exciting poetry. I may just do that. I doubt they will appreciate it. They want the sort of poetry I call “ocelot in the wardrobe” poetry. I called it after a poem I once read that featured an ocelot in the wardrobe. All I write is dull autobiographical stuff.  I’ve sometimes done something vaguely ocelotish but the one that were published were dreadful. It would be fun to develop a different persona and write deliberately dreadful poetry to see how many people will publish it just because it is stuffed with new and fashionable stuff.

After all, I don’t have enough to do already.

A few nights ago we had a flock of 30-40 parakeets fly over. Not one of them paused to have a look at our garden feeders. One day it will happen. One day . . .