Hinchingbrooke

We woke up - rather late - at Lisa and Mark's house, very grateful not to be starting 2016 with a hangover. We're knackered, however, and I don't get any sense of renewed vigour with the rolling in of another year, but our year did start with a lovely cuddle in bed! I've decided that a year which starts with cuddles, ends the same way, and with so little certainty in the world right now, I think someone to love is about all we can ever hope for. Our only mutual revolution is to make sure that the nonsense which gets thrown at us this year will serve no other purpose than to bring us even closer together. In fact, that's true of everyone around me. I'm going to be a proud and loyal Leo the lion this year.

We went for a bracing walk in the woods around Hinchingbrooke House this afternoon to blow away a few cobwebs. It was the first day of the winter which has felt remotely chilly, although, God knows it wasn't that cold. I wore a jacket and a waistcoat rather than a coat.

It was rather lovely to be in the grounds of Hinchingbrooke House. These were the water meadows where Pepys walked when he went to visit his cousin, "my Lord," the Earl of Sandwich who lived in the house. On our way to the car park we drove past the cottage where Pepys himself was born and visited often throughout his life. It was in that garden where his father buried a load of treasure and promptly forgot where he'd put it!

There's a lovely play area in the grounds which includes a mini-zip wire which we all had a razz on. All except Lisa who has damaged her neck showing. She was apparently doing a backward roly-poly. That's what happens when you're our age, Ladies and Gentlemen... Unless you do yoga or front bottom Pilates. Whenever anyone mentioned Pilates, they talk about their front bottoms!

We sat down to watch some telly tonight but the listings were full of films, and list shows with ludicrous numbers of adverts in between. I am genuinely not sure how many more list shows that we as a nation can put up with. They're the cheapest type of shows to make, they go on forever, they're always out of date and the "talking heads" people sit in front of ludicrous backdrops which, when you start to notice them, get incredibly irritating. We were once asked to appear on a list show about "the most outrageous weddings ever," which we politely declined. Heaven knows if they actually made the show... My mate Matt told me they'd feature our wedding regardless of whether or not we appeared on the show. He said the format meant that half the people interviewed would slate it and the other half would say it was hugely moving. Just like talking heads on the BBC news then!

As of today I've been writing a daily blog for exactly six years. That seems proper crazy to me!