8th January

No change in the weather, so am still housebound.   Still dreaming of the new laptop, but don't know when I'm going to get out to get it.

Have plenty of books on hand to read though.   At the moment I'm reading '17 Carnations' about the feckless Prince of Wales (Edward VIII) and  his shenanigans with Wallis Simpson - she who longed to be HRH, but had NO CHANCE.  An American divorcee!!!  Hell would have frozen over before the matriarchal Queen Mary would have even given her the time of day.   I'm glad we are now living in a more enlightened age and hope Prince Harry and Megan Markel live happily ever after.

When I've got through that - and it is actually quite weighty - I shall move on to the biography of a Church of England vicar who was a tearaway, made good.

ps on the matriarchal Queen Mary - she really shouldn't have been so snooty.   She came from an insignificant family who was very heavily in debt when she married George V.