Overcast but not particularly cold. Some people heard the cuckoo this morning, but I did not. Some rain about midday. Hedges are still decidedly bare. Winter wheat looks good in most places. Tulips are out in some gardens. Black currants forming their flowers. Planted 3 lupin roots (may possibly take but not flower this year). Purchased another 10lb seed potatoes (K. Edward, 2/3d stone). This morning some time after 9 heard an explosion. In this evening’s papers it is reported that a munition works in London blew up at about that time, so this must have been the bang. Distance of round about 45 miles, & not much less as the crow flies.
14 eggs. Total this week: 118
Onions (sown 29.3.40) are coming up thickly, also a few carrots (sown 30.3.40).
Orwell Diaries 1938-1942 
Poor old George: He doesn’t hear a downpour on his corrugated iron roof, he doesn’t hear the cuckoo, and only manages finally to hear the sound of a munitions factory exploding 45 miles away. He’ll have to do better than that if he wants to pass his army medical.
It’s strange, reading this journal, and re-reading 1984 and Animal Farm, to link up the incisive mind of the writer Orwell and his own personal journals, where he displays an amazing interest in the world around him, and an amazing amount of time on simple mundanities. Truly an amazing man (okay, I’ve used the word ‘amazing’ three times now – time to leave it)…