5 January 2010
The severe winter weather continues so the golf course is closed. In any event, I would not have been tempted to walk around the course in the freezing weather, instead I spent a little longer in bed listening to the first day of the second  test match, against South Africa, which started with the almost daily predictable drama we have come to expect, the loss of two of the remaining English wickets in the first over. Fortunately Prior and Onions managed to drag the score on so that we were only left with a deficit of 18 when South Africa opened its second innings.
The great excitement today was Anthea coming to do my use nails, both feet and hands. Although I had a perfectly good arrangement at the Saffron Walden Community Hospital with a charming poderist for my feet, hands were not part of the deal thus my taking the matter up with the Deputy Speaker, Sir Alan Hazelhurst. (Our local MP). He is still battling away in the background for the Essex County Council to provide a fingernail service for Essex residents. I believe he is winning but in the meantime ‘my lovely’ decided that the whole business of driving to Saffron Walden etc. was just too much of a fag and has made arrangements for me to be topped and tailed at home, of course, at our expense. I suppose we are one of the lucky ones and can afford it but I will still battle away to get this service providing free for others who are not as fortunate as we are and can afford it.