No.107, Wednesday, 25th. March 2026

I am looking forward to a day of doing almost nothing. However, I will have to move around a lot: this Devon sitting room is, at 14ºC, rather too cold for me. Reading and writing are pretty much out, as is listening to music or watching a film. Why are all of my preferred pastimes sedentary?

The weather has taken a wintry turn after just three days of spring. Cold strong winds from the north-west, which is thankfully unusual in this part of the world, are making it ‘feel like’ -1ºC out there, according to my weather app, and I can believe it. So gardening is out of the question. However, a potted Nandina that I tidied up only a few days ago – and weighted down with additional and even bigger pebbles – has been blown over and is now on its side. I shall have to rescue it at some point. Pointless to do it now – it’ll just blow over again. And, as if to add insult to injury, we are now being hit with icy rain.

It would be nice to think that I might one day live in a warm house but, ironically, I might need to move to a cold country like Sweden or Norway, where well-built and energy efficient homes are the norm. It always struck me as odd, no, perverse, that most British homes are built to a poor standard and are energy inefficient. No wonder we moan about heating bills all the time. What I don’t understand though, is why we have consistently failed to do anything about it, despite having the knowledge to rectify the situation. Actually, scratch that, I do indeed know why, and have done for nearly three decades.