Self Satisfied, verging on Smug.

It is nice to be able to return kindness. My mother's neighbour, who my mother would instantly elevate to Sainthood in the unlikely event that she ever became Pope, has a back injury and is temporarily incapacitated. Thus it has become my pleasant duty to look in on her every half day, and this evening she felt sufficiently disconsolate so when I offered her some of our casserole, she accepted my offer with alacrity. She was pathetically grateful when I took the meal in, but she has been so kind to my mother during her long period of incapacity that it seemed the least I could do. I shall be interested to hear what she thought of it. Personally, I thought it was rather good, but I would say that, wouldn't I?

I am also feeling distinctly smug that I drove down here yesterday. There are stories in the media that the roads are in chaos and sundry ginormous traffic jams have occurred on roads to the West Country. While cheerfully engrossed in a Hamish MacBeth audio book on the CD player in the car, I rolled down here yesterday in a very reasonable four and a half hours, averaging 61 m.p.h. and 64.9 m.p.g. of diesel. I am not saying that our Fiat Grande Punto is the greatest car around, but one really is hard pressed to see what more you could want from a car.

Tomorrow, I am going to set off for Sainsbury's at 06:40 to get a long list of stuff that we need. I must now check Granny's bank balance to see that we can afford it all. I've looked. We can.