Notes from the country with Vicky Turrell

  When is the best time to have your water tank spring a leak? The answer is, of course, ‘never’, but probably the worst time is at night, at sub-zero temperatures in a pandemic. We were ready for bed, waiting to watch a relaxing TV programme with our cups of cocoa (not really!) when Mr T went to put his towel in the airing cupboard. The carpet was wet. ‘It must be our hot water bottles stored there,’ we thought, but we have not used them for years. ‘We must have put something away wet.’ We would not put anything in the airing cupboard dripping with water. ‘Condensation?’ We had never had trouble before.   We ran out of our denial tactics when we saw a cold trickle down the big copper cylinder. There was a leak. We decided against holding our finger in the hole like the little Dutch boy. Instead, I checked the list of emergency plumbers online. The third one picked up. They would come – for a huge call out price and an unbelievable amount per hour. I booked them. To ch...

I have had an email from the Government. People who have been shielding may be eligible for some vitamins. It is vitamin D that we all make in our skin when we are in the sunshine. Those of us who have been indoors, more than usual, will have made less of the vitamin because we have not been exposed to much sun. Apparently, I will be informed about it all again in January. It seems like a good idea because, even if I go out in the garden today, the winter sun is not strong enough. So, I have just added the tablets to my on-line grocery order. They are not expensive and for me, it’s not worth waiting for the machinery of government to decide. In any case, I expect they are busy with other things. The birds are busy with other things too, from October to March when we need Vitamin D, they need lots of food to see them through. Watching birds brings a sort of sunlight to my mind, especially when I see the startling black and white spotted woodpecker. He has a bright red cap and rump...