I guess it was inevitable that, after a January that seemed to go on for ever, February passed by in a flash. I know it is a short month, indeed the shortest month, but it still felt like it was a week shorter than a normal month rather than just a couple of days.

Despite all that, I did seem to get a few things done in those four weeks. It has been raining and miserable just about every day, but the few breaks in the weather did coincide with weekend days or Friday afternoons when I would be able to take advantage. so I managed to get out on my motorbike a few times in February.

One weekend I took a run up to Dorking, the next I went across to Tonbridge Wells, and the next I went over to East Grinstead. On the fourth weekend the forecast was for rain and so I took the car over to the record fair in Horsham. I was very disappointed to find that no rain came and I could have taken the bike after all.

To be clear, I don’t mind riding in the rain so much, especially not if it is just drizzle. It is just that I do not want to leave the bike uncovered and don’t want to cover up a wet bike. Anyway, given the current climate I think I did well to manage nearly 120 miles in the month.

All of those miles had a record fair or record shop as the destination and excuse to get out for a ride, so I did end up with quite a few more LPs this month, including another three Stanley Clarke LPs and LPs that plug a few gaps in the growing collection of Mike Oldfield, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan albums. I like to listen to a record while I do the Times puzzles with a coffee after lunch, and while reading in the evening and so they have all been listened to already.

It was another eventful month from a family perspective. One weekend we went down to Storrington to visit the new baby, and one of the other grandkids was there too. On the Monday our daughter came up to visit with her baby, and then on Friday we saw the three grandkids who are Norfolk-based, as they were on their way back home from all our kids getting together. We also acquired yet another surprise grandchild. It was a surprise because we hadn’t even known the mother was pregnant – we are not in touch. It is complicated.

In other ways this was a very untypical month. I actually drove the car twice. One time was just to drop Jayne at the town centre then go to the tip to get rid of some stuff, so all very local, but it still counts. I also had three alcoholic drinks. In the same month! I had drunk a couple of the cans of fruit cider that have been in the fridge for ever, to make some room in there, and then had another fruit cider when Jayne and I went out for a meal on Valentine’s day.

Inbetween all that I still managed to read a dozen books – eleven of them ebooks and ten of them fiction. I also watched a little more TV than I usually get round to.

I started watching the return of Mock the Week on some cable channel. It is the same curate’s egg as before, but not improved by being on a commercial channel. I think that an uninterrupted half hour is better than 45 minutes spread over an hour and broken up with huge as breaks. Over on Netflix I binge-watched the new season of the Lincoln Lawyer, although that was only binge-watching by my standards in that I got through the 10 episodes over three or four evenings. I know most people would have done it in one or two.

As far as films are concerned, I streamed three in the month:

• Interceptor (2022)
  I realised about 5 minutes in that I had seen it before, but decided to stick with it since it is only 90 minutes long and watchable, even if extremely implausible.
• Cellar Door (2024)
  A thriller that has the redeeming feature of being less than 100 minutes long, but is otherwise terrible. It is based on such an unrealistic premise that the whole thing is too unbelievable. Even worse than that, after a few interesting twists towards the end, there is no real resolution. I have reached the age where I like a resolution to films now.
• Ballerina (2025)
  I try to avoid films that are over 2 hours long and try to avoid films on Amazon Prime, but I am a sucker for John Wick-related content and so I put up with the adverts and gave it a go. A very high body count and almost cartoonish levels of violence, which is what you expect from this franchise. With these films you really do have to buy into the whole ridiculous idea of a world where every other person seems to be an assassin, but if you are willing to suspend disbelief then it is very satisfying.

So. Plenty there to distract me from the increasingly depressing national and world events in the news, which I try not to pay too much attention to. Having said that, at least there was the good news of the Greens beating Reform PLC in that by-election.