Right. Monday – dentist, checkup and scale and polish. Tuesday – pedicure. Wednesday – recovered. Today – hairdo. Have also booked my treatment at Indigo – hubby gave me a voucher for Xmas, but I wanted to see how the wonky hands, wrists and feet were going to be treated before I booked anything. Now I know – 5 steroid injections in the feet, hopefully no surgery, but possibly: nerve conduction tests on wrists, if they come up positive for carpal tunnel syndrome, surgery on each wrist, one at a time. Then, hopefully when they are healed, I’ll be able to knit again. Yay!

I try to organise my weeks so that I have at least two days with nothing booked, otherwise I end up taking a month to get over a week, if you see what I mean.

Have just finished Molly Gaskell’s “Frankly, My Dear”, which is an in-depth look at Gone With The Wind. Excellent, really enjoyed it. Now I want to watch the film and read the book. My copy disintegrated because I read it so much. So I’ve had to order a new copy, and a blu-ray DVD. The casual racism in both is appalling, but that’s how things were then. Dreadful. Unimaginable, really.

Hairdo – am delighted with it. Excellent hairdresser. We always have an interesting talk too – today it revolved around surnames and how important they are. Mine of course was changed, probably from Gould or Gold, at some time in the mists of history, because my dad was Jewish, and traced his family back to the Spanish Inquisition (what people will do in the name of religion!), when they emigrated to Poland. When they arrived in the UK there was (and still is) anti-Semitism around, so the name was Anglicised. But surnames generally tell you loads – Mason of course means that at some point the family were masons. Smith – lots of Smiths because there are blacksmiths, locksmiths,  all sorts of smiths. Johnson – John’s son, Baker is obvious, the list goes on. Hair guy is interested because his surname belongs to a Catholic saint – (ooh, are there any other sort of saints? mm, must check that out) – I’m sure there will be loads on the internet about it.

Had a lovely talk with my friend Deb on Saturday too. It’s so good to see friends. We’ve known each other 45 years. That’s a big number.

Also spoke to my friend Sarah today who lives up north now. We learned  Italian together at Adult Education and have remained friends since. Her children are younger than mine (well, she’s 11 years younger than me!), but her son is off to Uni this year – O. M. G.

Am planning to completely replant one of the beds in the garden. Plan: in the autumn, get up all the old plants, replant in a large pot all the ones I want to keep and overwinter, dump the rest, weedkiller the whole bed, cover with black plastic bin liners held down with bricks, and then in the spring plant up again, minus the rampant stuff which has taken it over. Very pretty, white flowers, don’t know what it’s called, but it needs to go.

Tomorrow – shopping arriving from Waitrose, pottering about gently in the garden.

Well, that’s my life so far this week. Ooh, spoke to my lovely niece (I have four lovely nieces) and she’s made a life-changing decision. Bless her, I’m sure things will improve for her now.