It’s been a busy week staycationing. On Monday we went up the Shard and we saw the offspring off to France on Tuesday. Wednesday was taken up largely with collecting the Boywonder’s new car from the garage, and my mother paid her usual visit before our meal at the Lima restaurant on London’s Rathbone Place. I’d never eaten Peruvian food before and it really enjoyed it although the buzzy restaurant was a little too loud for me. Thursday was a day spent largely at home and doing my volunteering.

Now, the thing with spending ones holiday at home is that the chores are still there to be done: there is food to be cooked and cleared;  floors to be cleaned; stuff to be collected from the dry cleaner’s, the gallery, the pharmacy; washing and ironing to be done. This needn’t be a negative prospect: I tend to find even the most luxurious, exotic, relaxing of holidays blighted by the frantic laundry and packing beforehand and the dirty clothes mountain afterwards, which usually takes at least a week (two for skiing) to clear. That just does not happen with a staycation.

Of the daily chores, the most pressing and, I find, one of the most pleasurable is the daily dog walk. How intelligent, then to kill two birds with one stone and take Oscar to Box Hill yesterday for his walk. Box Hill is protected by the National Trust. It’s a fairly challenging climb for moderately fit two-legged visitors but no problem for those with four legs, who are welcome.

We had lunch at the King William IV pub at Mickleham, which also welcomes dogs. In the evening we went to One Man Two Guvnors which was excellent and a very welcome diversion from the reality of Results Day. Oh there’s so much I could say about that, but I shan’t. Not just yet, anyway.