Bit of a cloudy morning, but at least there are clouds and not just a grey lid over everything. The ice saints are still with us and today it is the turn of St. Servatius. It will all finish on Friday with the Cold Sophie, St. Sophie, but not named after my mother-in-law, that was just a coincidence. The cold Sophie is the one that the farmers dread most of all and has a reputation of freezing a few growing crops.

Yesterday early evening the sky had something more original to show and even the sun was making itself noticeable at the edges. However, during the night there were a few rain showers to dampen it all.

Yesterday afternoon I was on an excursion to the local traffic authorities to organise my new driving licence. I still had the original, a paper form with a photo of a very young Mrs. Angloswiss. This is now only valid for the next two years, so armed with a new photo of a golden oldie version of me, I arrived. As the offices are situated next to the building where I worked for 30 years in a neighbouring village, I knew where to go, but even roads change over the years. It used to be a straight run on the main road, but now there have planted roundabouts on the road to negotiate. It also seemed to be that the road had got narrower, but my memory is no longer so fresh.

When I arrived at the entrance there were the general yellow lines to warn about keeping distances. As there were no further visitors I could enter with no problem, although there are some steep steps to climb to get to the office inside. Being handicapped this was not so easy to conquer for me, but there was a lift also available.

When I arrived in the office, there were at least ten windows marked for new driving licences, but 9 were closed. I was given a form to complete which was an easy job and she took my old driving licence, meaning I now have none to show if necessary. I told the lady I would like to keep the old licence as a memory, and she said they would return i but would be full of holes to prove that it was no longer valid. However the new credit card similar licence will be arriving within a day or two with the bill, so no problem. They used to issue them immediately but that has now changed as everything else seems to today. I arrived safely home, and just caught the beginnings of the evening traffic. Now that we no longer have such a strict lockdown the traffic has returned to the roads in full and it was stop and go on the way: sometimes lockdown has its advantages, but it again brought back memories of my life as a working woman.

Today is again a day of shopping where they let me out to meet people in the stores. Now store is written in plural as we are again free to wander from shop to shop, naturally keeping our safe distances and spraying your hands with alcohol when entering.

I close with a floral greeting from my garden. I saw something glimmering red from my window and at a closer look realised that my first peony has opened and there will be many more to come. Keep safe, keep your distance and if necessary be masked.