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To Wells Rise, London
My darling,
We are gathered in the lounge. Parthenope is writing, Julian and Nicola reading, and self writing while waiting for the phone to go. The room is beautifully warm because the snow has turned into rain and it is thawing, but it is blowing very hard. The roads have been awful – I fell down twice on the loop road on my way to the village shop, and on the second occasion the rescue team of Parthenope and Nicola likewise fell down. Julian rode his bike and did not come off but heaven know why not. Noises very life-like but not at all like Brands Hatch; quite outstandingly moderate in fact.
Our room was so cold I was jolly glad of the electric blanket. Unfortunately my ability to regulate it to maintain an equable temperature is impaired by sleep so I kept on waking up because I was either shivering with cold and stiff as I could well be while maintaining my ability to shiver, or else (having inadvertently switched on to ‘high‘) pouring with sweat and dreaming I was fighting my way through a tropical jungle. I awoke soon after 8.0 but all the others were still fast asleep. So I proceeded to get breakfast and relied on the resulting fracas to wake them, which gradually it did.
I constantly wonder how you are getting on – at this point you rang up. I forgot to ask you if you had the house properly warmed up …