Work on hold due to cataract ops in February and March. Currently have one long-sighted eye and one short. Looking forward to 20/20 vision and night sight – like the owls, and a decent pair of reading glasses.

I am looking longingly at Hilary Mantel’s lastest volume The Mirror and the Light and thinking about when I can read it. I know Anton Lessor is reading an adaptation on Radio 4’s Book of the Week starting on Monday 16 March. It’s 15 episodes though – so it’s more like Book of Three Weeks – and I hope to have my new reading specs by then to tackle Mantel’s wonderful prose myself.

A sign of the times – and our ability to find humour even in the darker side of life.