Saturday 11th November 2017

It had been decided that with me away from Monday, Jools would go to Suffolk for the day, spend the night and come back in the morning. To be honest, I got so weary from last week's trip, that I could not face doing it this week. Saying that, I am pencilled in to go up On Friday next week, but for now we shall see. Anyway, Jools had plans for a couple of bead shops she might go to on the way up, and I had some chores to be getting on with. We get up at just gone six, Jools has breakfast, has a coffee and gets ready to leave. And I keep out of the way so not to delay her further.

She is gone just after seven, so I have my breakfast, and all around me in the quiet of the house, I am followed around by the three cats, keeping an eye on me. I have pictures to edit, radio to listen to, and on the i play, there is Lucy Worsley's three part documentary on the Romanov family, and how they ruled Russia for near four centuries until the people's will for change and revolution was impossible to stop. It is a fascinating story, of how a huge country was dragged into the (then) modern age by Peter the Great, who traveled through Europe researching modern Naval thought and warfare, then taking that back home, creating a navy from scratch and defeating the Swedish Navy against the odds.

Tying up all power in one family relies on each new Czar understanding the issues, delegating where necessary, and only getting involved when needed. That Peter did it all pretty by himself and his will, meant that many who followed thought they should to. But behind the military campaigns, there was always the Serfs who wanted self determination, but Russia needed the Serfs to populate their army.

Once the revolution(s) happened, the Bolsheviks needed to shore up their power base, and decided that the remaining Romanovs would be better of dead, so ordered them to be killed. The reality was to change a Czarist absolutism to a Soviet one, the people having to accept what was done to them, in their name.

Boris Pasternak saw this and tried to reconcile the love of his country and people and hatred for what the revolution become, and continued work on his magnus opus, Doctor Zhivago, despite it being highly critical of the revolution, but his work was more important to stop. In the end, the State refused to publish it, but manuscripts were smuggled out and published anyway, and then used as a tool in the propaganda battles of the cold war. Art is art, and despite finishing his life penniless, people, even those in Russia recognised what he had done. It was an uplifting story, especially when he dies, people were made aware of his funeral by notes placed at the main Moscow railway station, and thousands of people attended, mourning a great poet and Russian.

I watched three episodes through the day, listened to Huey on the radio, cleaned the kitchen cupboard, wrote, edited pictures, in general made myself busy through the day, until at two, I decided it was time for a walk. There is walking and then there is walking Going as far as Fleet house or top of The Dip is one thing, but pressing on to the cliffs is another, and I had not done the latter for at least two months. I should do it, so I did.

Even though it is the second week of November, and there was a cool breeze blowing from the north, if you were out of it, it was warm, not quite warm enough to not have a jacket on, but not cold. Vegetation is taken on the subdued tones of winter, but here and there there were plants still flowering, or flowering again. I was out to check on these, and to get some exercise, and take shots of course.

After I had crossed the fields, the footpath beyond was carpeted with golden fallen leaves, no insects about, at least not no the rain had gone behind the clouds for the rest of the day. I pressed on down Norway Drove to the top of The Dip, and paused; should I go on or turn for home. My back suggested I should turn round, but I wanted to check the bank up the hill for primroses, and once up the other side, just along the road, then across the fields climbing to the monument.

I went on, sliding down the track, and through the mud at the bottom, not quite as bad as I have seen, but typical for this time of the year, and then up the 45 degree slope the other side, trying to ignore the pain in my lower back, making my way up to the lane the other side.

Light was really fading now, and colours more muted, but I went on, taking the right hand track at the top of Otty Bottom Road, and on and upwards. The wind cut through me, but the thought of seeing something new, still in flower was enough to drive me on. On and upwards to the cliffs and the Monument. I could smell cooking from Bluebells, now apparently reopened again, and was doing good business, but I had no plans to call in, I just go to the bench, sit for a few minutes, then take a couple of shots looking down to the tiny beach at the base of the cliffs, all the smaller as it was high tide.

I take in the salt-tinged air, and turn for home, mostly downhill from here, which was good. I pass just a couple of people, both walking their dogs, wrapped up against the keen wind. I reach the dip at half three, ligt was really fading now, and my back had gone from complaining to plain angry tirade. But I had done it, walked all the way to the cliffs and back.

At home I make a brew, and eat the second of the vanilla tarts, feed the cats and then spend another hour with Lucy in Russia.

Darkness fell, and once the program finished, I went to make dinner; breaded chicken and cous cous, which was very good indeed, even if I did eat alone.

Afterwards, I watch a documentary on Funk, more Lucy and finally, QI. Taking me to eleven at night. Jools called, no change in Mum's condition. She is still in the isolation ward, getting few visitors and fed up. Depressed, really. And there is nothing we can do. She has cleared out all the old saucepans as there was a load of new ones in one of the wardrobes in a spare bedroom. All still in their boxes. The craziness continues, but maybe we can make it stop.