Hermit

I am home alone like Kevin McAllister. Shirley went off with a bunch of local women friends yesterday. They have rented a house in a small coastal town called Hornsea which, coincidentally, figured importantly in my teenage years. It is just six miles from the village where I was born and raised.

This morning I rolled over at 7am, pressed the button on our radio alarm clock and drifted back to sleep as the radio churned out news from home and abroad. I finally got up at 9am.

Weatherwise, today was quite nice - bright and dry with temperatures hovering around 12°C. I considered undertaking another long walk somewhere but instead chose to tackle a job in the garden. I didn't even need  to don a coat.

Several days ago, I trimmed a little tree that hangs over the path halfway up our long, rectangular garden. This involved standing near the top of an aluminium stepladder six feet above the ground. It also required the use of a saw and secateurs.

All through the winter, I had been noticing how many long shoots had burst from that tree, reaching up to the sky. It had been pruned before but  the last time was perhaps three or four years ago. This time I remembered to wear safety glasses to prevent sawdust from getting in my eyes.

In two sessions, I managed to cut away all the troublesome shoots. Some of them were up to twenty feet long. I laid half of them on our lawn and the other half under the apple tree that is next to the stump of our Ian's old horse chestnut tree.

Then some wet days came along so I  delayed processing those long, spindly branches. I planned to clip away side growths and finish up with long shoots and thin branches for possible use in a side project that arrived in my imagination a few nights ago. I had the idea of weaving some rustic border edging - only about six inches high. This will require a number of short poles to be hammered in the ground at intervals. Well, we will see if that daydream materialises in the coming weeks.

At half past four, I came back in the house ready to watch a big rugby union international - England versus Scotland in the annual Six Nations Championship. It was a gripping game in which there were various missed opportunities but in the end I am delighted to say that England won by sixteen points to fifteen. To borrow from Scotland's national anthem - we sent them homeward "to think again".

For my late evening meal I had a baked potato, fine green beans, fried onions and mushrooms with a fine rump steak that I had bought in anticipation of this solitary day. To accompany the meal, I treated myself to a glass of "Kinvale" cabernet sauvignon wine from South Australia.

Soon "Match of the Day" will be on BBC 1 as it is every Saturday night during the football season. I haven't spoken to a soul all day - either in person or over the

telephone. Perhaps we could all do with days like this once in a while.