Today was different. I am one of those lucky ones for whom prednisolone kicks in very quickly; after only my second dose this morning I was leaping around like an amphetamine fuelled Spider-Man, scaling tall hedges and bounding up stairs. I found myself singing in my head

Oh I wish I could take steroids
All the time

to the tune of a certain popular Christmas tune.

Having said that I was awake between 4am and 7am, quite happily it has to be said; but I did go back to sleep for a couple of hours after that.

The garden centre had some really nice stuff including these parasols, so we carried on with our project to make our backyard beautiful and interesting and spent far too much money. TSM took pity on a rather sad looking plant that was on the verge of dying and that you would be mad to buy. So of course we bought it and are now attempting to bring it back to life.

TSM took me to the pool at her gym later to try and teach me how to swim. Impossible of course. I just sink. Seasoned swimming instructors have ended up in psychiatric care following attempts to even get me to float, let alone move in the water. I even got panicky in the outdoor hot tub, particularly when the jets were activated. Then we went in the sauna bit after which I did feel curiously healthy. But on the whole I don’t like any of this spa and swimming stuff. We out-evolved water millions of years ago for a reason: It’s wet, full of fish and you can’t read, drink coffee or use your iPad.

Lovely evening in the garden eating simple supper and playing kalooki again, although TSM has this habit when she is losing of saying "let’s finish the game tomorrow" which of course we never do. But watering the plants together after dark was rather nice.

Good day.