Together with my daughter, I have been writing a gratitude/“knowing you’re bloody born” diary to help her through this latest lockdown. Grace Dent’s article (Imaginary gin and fictitious chips got me through Friday, 22 January) resonated so much that reading it was one of my three positive things for the day.
Jo Dunstan
Kendal, Cumbria
• Like Alison Norris (Letters, 24 January), I was disconcerted by the absence of marmalade correspondence this year, but I can reassure her that we marmalade makers of a certain age are still here. My answer to Penny Aldred is that, thanks to my GP practice’s speed off the mark, I have had a second Covid jab. So it’s “yes” to both questions.
David Hitchin
Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire
• I used to make furniture to commission and this included mirrors. It is conventional to put a sheet of paper behind the glass, and for this purpose I kept a supply of interesting Guardian articles (Letters, 18 January). Somewhere there is a mirror with an account of Thatcher’s resignation hidden inside.
Chris Barney
Rugby, Warwickshire
• Colin Perchard knows that spring is in sight because his mimosa tree is in full bloom (Letters, 24 January). Sadly, my visual clue that spring is coming is that supermarkets started selling Easter eggs a fortnight ago.
Pete Dorey
Bath
• Ice on the fish tank (Letters, 20January)? At school in the 1960s the ink would freeze overnight in the inkwells. Hardly surprising as our classrooms were in Nissen huts.
Fiona Porter
Purley, London
