Thursday, 2nd January – Cut out the best two pages from my book about Beatrix Potter and stuck them in my scrapbook.
Friday, 3rd January – When I went to the shops I found the pavement so slippery I couldn’t stand up.
Saturday, 4th January – Because of the mist I couldn’t see the houses in Aynam Road from my windows.
Sunday, 5th January – Sent a message to the Wainwright Facebook site about the Brock Crags chapter of The Far Eastern Fells and later found it on the site.
Monday, 6th January – Received some questions from Will Burgess, and I could think of a suitable answer to every one of them.
Friday, 10th January – In the morning, the temperature recorded by the computer was -6°C.
Tuesday, 14th January – The temperature recorded by the computer was +10°C. Bought a halogen heater at Argos, but I couldn’t use it because I couldn’t attach the heater to the pedestal.
Wednesday, 15th January – Took the heater back to Argos, where they got it to work. Saw an egret in Kendal for the first time: I have been wondering when I would do so.
Chris phoned to say that he had copied all my videos to a computer storage device.
Thursday, 16th January – When I wanted to go out I couldn’t start the car because the battery was flat. The man downstairs happened to be charging the battery of his motorcycle at the time and he was able to do the same for me.
Friday, 17th January – Chris phoned to say that I have to change my Amazon password, so I phoned K.T.D. and they did this for me using Home Connect. After that, I couldn’t receive emails, but I received a lot of phone calls from people I know saying that they had received emails from me that I never sent.
Saturday, 18th January – Sent a message to Facebook that enabled Chris to tell me that I had changed the wrong password.
Sunday, 19th January – Telephoned British Telecom. They enabled me to receive emails in the future, but they couldn’t enable me to read any that have been sent to me in the past few days. I found it very difficult talking on the telephone without Home Connect. Within two minutes of my ringing off, I received an online newsletter from the Old Buckwellians. Within twenty minutes I received an online newsletter from the Wainwright Society giving long-awaited details of their next walk. It was lucky that I didn’t wait until Monday to phone B.T. as I was planning to do.
I mentioned in Happy Memories that I seem to experience more than my share of coincidences, and this is still true.
Monday, 20th January – John Manning phoned and asked me which of the Lakeland fells had the most meaning for me. I thought about it and couldn’t come up with an answer. Then, after about half an hour, it came to me: it had to be Scafell Pike, where I lived for six weeks and which I devoted my life to for three and a half years. Then I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t thought of it before.
Wednesday, 22nd January – Sent passages from my diary relating to Scafell Pike to John Manning.
Thursday, 23rd January – Finished looking through the Eyewitness guide to the Czech and Slovak Republics and found it full of photographs of beautiful buildings. These must have been there in the 1950s, and yet the National Geographic magazines of that time did not have a good word to say about the countries of Eastern Europe.
Chris phoned to ask me to send him the photograph of the tent on Scafell Pike for John Manning, and I did so.
Friday, 24th January – Took the car to Cumbria Suzuki to have a new battery fitted.
Saturday, 25th January – Went for a walk on Helsington Barrows and took a photograph of a fungus that I was unable to identify.
Wednesday, 29th January – Went on a nine-mile walk with the Kendal Ramblers to Rather Heath, Underbarrow church and Ashes Farm in beautiful weather. They walked so quickly that it was difficult to keep up with them, and there wasn’t time to study the scenery. Part of our route coincided with the Dales Way, and here we got mixed up with another group of walkers.