Sunday, November 8

This morning I went for a very brisk walk before lunch, and I listened to the first episode of Jeremy Paxman’s new podcast. He talked to Lee Child, the author of the Jack Reacher thrillers. He proved a very entertaining interviewee, and pointed out something I did not know.

If someone callenges you to speak for one minute without using any word that contains the letter “A” then just start counting slowly. The first number in English that contains the letter “a”? One hundred and one. You will have to count unnecessarily fast to reach that within your minute.

Last week we bought some lilies as a gift for Irma’s mother. Today they remain in fine health: in fact they look exactly as they did when we bought tem. Impressed I take a picture.