Blooming.

I am in Lewes with Hilary. Her house is absolutely beautiful, if a tad on the cold side. Apparently her landlord keeps promising to bring curtains round but keeps forgetting! I think I must have been lying when I said I rarely get cold because I am now wearing two jumpers.

We've just sat down to eat supper; baked potatoes and chilli. That'll soon warm us up!

We just spent the day in Brighton. I set out to buy lots of Christmas presents and seem to have succeeded in my mission. It was a lovely place to be; not too crowded, wonderfully crisp and sunny and full of really interesting, arty shops. Uncle Bill was great company. It was her birthday on Saturday and we celebrated with a revolting milkshake! She looks very well at the moment. You might say blooming...

December 14th 1660, and it rained all day. London was buzzing with talk of a plot against the King, for which 40 people had been arrested.

Pepys spent the afternoon in the pub, talking about women and it's a wonder that he had any success in that department at all, "in discourse I learnt a pretty trick to try whether a woman be a maid or no, by a string going round her head to meet at the end of her nose, which if she be not will come a great way beyond."

We all know that women's noses shrink by a foot when they lose their maidenheads... That's why they call it a Maidenhead!