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The Public Health Authority is looking for two thousand visiting Chinese people. I have an uncomfortable suspicion that they are all in the Lake District.

It was on the six o’ clock news that the government is looking for the Chinese visitors in order to make sure they do not have this think-it’s-a-cold-then-you-die disease. I could help them out here. I think half of the population of China must be visiting the Lake District at the moment, mostly on tour buses. I think they are Chinese. They look exactly like the Japanese only with cheaper trainers.

I said that for a joke. Actually I can’t tell the difference between expensive trainers and cheap ones, which has saved me a small fortune over the years. Japanese visitors, however, tend to be remarkably natty dressers. I would also dress beautifully if I was young, dainty and slim like most of them are, but since I am in my fifties and noticeably rotund, there is no point. No amount of spending two hundred quid on a T shirt is going to make me look any thinner, so I might as well carry on getting the Five For A Tenner ones on eBay.

The Chinese are on coach tours. They are not getting in taxis, I am sorry to say, apart from one young man the other night who went to the railway station. He coughed so much that I was in an agony of anxiety for the entire journey. I wound my window down and stuck my head out, but that did not stop him breathing or giving me the money for the fare. If I die of a hideous disease contracted from a foreign plague-carrier it will all be for the sake of a fiver. For the sake of £4.70, actually, because he didn’t tip.

So far, however, I have not died, nor am I beginning to develop alarming respiratory symptoms, apart from briefly, when I was almost at the top of the fell this morning, so I suppose probably it will be all right.

At the time of writing I am at work in my own. Mark has been rurally broadbanding today, and is not back yet. I do not mind being on my own, because it means that I do not have to share the tea. I like the tea very much.

In consequence of this I have had the whole day to occupy by myself. This was not at all difficult, given the usual abundant supply of jobs that needed to be done, but in the middle of washing and buying reduced-price cauliflower from Sainsbury’s I did take the dogs up the fell.

I have been trying to use up leftovers, because of the tight January budget constraints, and spent some time this morning slicing apples. These are the last remaining handful from a sackful given to us last autumn by our neighbours. They are gorgeous russet apples, from their own tree, and they are a joy every year. I do not much like apples, but I like these, they are dense and sweet and splendid.

The last few had gone soft, and today I sliced them thinly and dipped them in lemon juice and laid them in trays to dry on the top of the stove. I was very tempted to add sugar, because I like sugar, but virtue got the better of me, and so they are as nature intended them. I hope they are all right.

Dried apple is nice just to eat, but you can also put it in cakes, and if there is any that is still leftover it can be added to the bucket of dried fruit on the top of the fridge. This is kept constantly replenished and is soaking in brandy. Practically every kind of cooking is improved by the addition of fruit well-soaked in brandy, but of course most of it makes up the mince pie mix next October. All fruit goes nicely into this, try adding blackberries.

I have been cleaning out the fridge, and so for our dinner this evening we are also utilising leftovers, tonight it is Left Over Risotto. The risotto itself was not leftover, of course, but pretty much everything in it was. There was a shrivelled carrot, and some curly celery, and some almost-desiccated onions, and as a crowning glory, a rusty tin of pineapple whose sell by date recommmended consumption prior to September 2015.

I added rice and coconut and a slice of ham from the back of the fridge whose provenance was uncertain. After that I remembered half a bottle of white wine underneath the sideboard, which must have been there since Elspeth’s visit on Christmas Eve, and discovered a large wedge of Wensleydale with cranberries, left behind after Christmas by Number One Daughter and which somehow we had neglected to consume.

The sell-by-date on that was three weeks ago but I cut the dubious bits off the edges and chucked it in anyway.

There was a cauliflower which Sainsbury’s had reduced to fifty pence, and a handful of peanuts that had been hanging round in a dish. Then I added garlic and smoked paprika and cayenne pepper and a spoonful of brown sugar and the last of the milk that we had bought on Shapinsay.

Readers, it was superb, improbable as that might sound. It was quite the nicest thing I have eaten for ages. There is still some left, it will feed us all weekend.

After that I did some more painting. I have varied the leaves by improvising some flowers. None of them are finished yet, so spare me your attention to accurate detail observations please. They are just blocks of colour so far.

The leaves are not finished either, I am just bored with them.