I really should have planned better, but I just kept ordering as usual until Julia went to Canada. I currently have an unexpected loaf of bread (though this is partly due to not needing sandwiches too), a mushroom surplus and an oversupply of avocadoes. I also have a surfeit of sausages,  a pile of carrots and more salad type things than I can contemplate without feeling queasy.

My soup plans have been shelved as I need to eat at least one avocado tonight to keep things in order, and I also have sausages to eat. Mushrooms can wait. They are holding up well and the worst thing a mushroom can do is deteriorate quietly and make you feel guilty.  A sausage, left to its own devices, can be fatal, and I don’t like the  idea of botulism roulette.

Today, the first proper day of my retirement, has been marked, as I feared it might be, by doing very little. It is gathering momentum but the problem is that I tend to get active as the light declines, work in darkness and then sleep during the day. It worked during lockdown, but that was an extended holiday. As a strategy for the rest of my life, it has certain problems. It’s fine for cats, but, let’s face it, they have humans to do their shopping for them and they don’t have doctors suggesting seeing them at 8.30am.

Today I have eaten, watched TV, read, charged my electrical equipment, realised I have lost my Kindle again, washed up and texted and emailed Julia. She is enjoying herself, she has seen black squirrels and the weather is being kind. She has not yet seen a blue jay or eaten poutine. I am clearly going to have to text and tell her to get on with it.

Hake and Chips in Cromer. Compared to poutine this is health food.