March was quite eventful, and also turned out to be quite an expensive month for us.

Jayne picked up her new motorbike at the beginning of the month from the Harley Davidson dealers in East Sussex. Quite an event for her, but also for me because after going don there together I had to drive the car home – the first time I had been behind the wheel this year! After dropping the car off I got changed and hopped on my bike to meet up with her in Tonbridge so we could ride home together. Incidentally this was the first unplanned expense because we took the wrong route out of town, accidentally went through a bus lane and got a PCN each.

I was off that week so I had a few more rides myself, including a test ride to see if I wanted to trade up to a bigger Honda. I may or may not have fallen off it and needed a pair of nearby scaffolders to help me lift the bike back up. Anyway, I have decided to stick with what I have got and may or may not have been in pain for the rest of the month with what may or may not be a broken rib or two. It didn’t stop me also going out for a ride with Jayne the next day down to Arundel and Whiteways. All together I managed a couple of hundred miles riding, which is good considering everything else that was going on.

“Everything else” included a few days up in Glasgow for work, a trip out to Essex to take my Mum out to a show, and then a weekend in Norwich to visit Charlie and his family.

The Glasgow trip went well with all the EasyJet flights on time. In fact the return trip took off exactly on time and arrive a tad early.

The Essex trip involved me actually driving again, all the way to Wickford, then on to Southend and then back home. I really can’t remember the last time I drove so far. The show was good too; Mark Steele’s current tour. I know Mum is a fan of his various Radio 4 shows and likes him, and I did warn her that his live show is considerably more sweary than his Radio 4 programmes, but I think that octogenarians are quite capable of enjoying sweary comedy. Mind you, I wasn’t sitting next to her. That was my brother-in-law who felt acutely embarrassed about it all.

The show was mostly about Mark’s cancer experience, so there were a few flashbacks for me.

The Norwich trip was fantastic – though also fantastically expensive. By sheer coincidence there was a record fair on the Saturday and 5 or 6 record shops within walking distance of our hotel. Not that I got too carried away. I may have come home with a dozen albums and some singles but they were bargains. The record fair actually cost me less than car parking! The real expense was Jayne having a £400+ spree in Primark buying holiday clothes for the grandkids for when we take them to Corfu in May.

That holiday is also indirectly responsible for out other unplanned expense. We will need to have the cat put in a cattery, but they need him to have all his vaccinations and so forth, so we took him to the vets for that. It was not too expensive to get the jabs and the microchip, but the vets gave him the once-over and discovered some issues with his teeth. Having a couple of extractions under general anaesthetic, plus a few other bits and pieces cost us nearly £800. Can’t complain though. He is 15 and only been to the vets once before for a UTI years ago. Being from a litter of farm cats he is obviously quite robust.

Apart from doing my fist driving of the year, I also had my first alcoholic drink of the year when I had a bottle of Perroni with a pizza in Norwich. I nearly finished it all.

Amongst all that activity I somehow managed to read 9 books, and three of them were non-fiction so I am doing quite well with my intention to read more non-fiction, but less well with my intention to read less overall. My excuse is that there were a couple of flights and several evenings in a hotel in Glasgow that gave me lots of reading time.

didn’t watch much TV. Just the conclusions of the latest series of Reacher and Death in Paradise, plus the woefully short new surprise series of Dave Gorman’s Modern Life is Goodish. On the other had, I did watch a whole three films:

• Counterattack (2025)
  A pretty dreadful by-the-numbers action film with some appalling CGI at the start, but enjoyable enough if you set your expectations accordingly
• Mercy (2023)
  Another hostage situation film, set in a hospital. For a change the villains are Irish though Jon Voigt’s accent was a bit suspect. As long as you ignore the fact that a large hospital appears to only have less than two dozen people in it, including staff, patients, and visitors, it passes the time OK. And it is always fun to have a strong female lead.
• Sisu (2022)
  A Finnish film set towards the end of WWII. Lots of extreme violence as a lone Finnish ex-special forces soldier turned prospector goes absolutely postal on a group of Nazis who stole his gold like a big Finnish John Wick/Rambo character.

Obviously I bought a lot of records. An embarrassingly large number really, but there were a couple of record fairs and a rare trip to Arundel.

I did get lucky with the Premium Bonds, but these things are relative. I won £200 but that isn’t going to cover the vet bills!