As I suppose I might have realised, the Indian scamsters took advantage of the chance for a rummage to steal my address book: doubtless just about everyone who looks at this blog has by now received an invitation to buy dodgy Viagra. Sorry. Apart from that, we’ve had an interesting week. For a few days […]
I’ m still not sure we have the rights of this. I was in the middle of some not uncomplicated work of my own when I was rung up out of the blue by Microsoft, or ‘Microsoft’, in the person of an Indian guy on an international line. It’s certainly the case that from time […]
Going out to diplomatise with a grass-cutter, we were surprised to find Michael the Postie had left a large and promising box in the garage — we weren’t looking for any parcels this week. It proved to contain several packets of some of the nicest German biscuits there are — mysterious, somewhat medieval objcts […]
It has rained hard all day (good). Since it has now stopped, I went out with Miss Kit. Wandering around the dripping garden in search of a spot for her to relieve herself on which was not replete with mysterious menace, I became aware that since I last saw them, my Solomon’s Seal has all […]
I went down to hoe the dahlias today, and the first of the orange one has come out in a bloom, It’s very small, but the most beautiful and vivid flame-red. When the rest of them catch up with it I think it will be a sort of visual exclamation mark in any bunch it […]
We went to our favourite antique shop today, because we were in sudden need of a christening present (we found one, a very suitable string of pearls). On the way there and back, we pass through an odd little village called Stuartfield — odd because its layout is so very suggestive of the Six […]
I’ve sent the new novel to my agent. Always very hard to do, especially at this risk-averse juncture. Candles, anybody?
The hedgerows are (somewhat belatedly) foaming with elderflower. The other day, we had a major picking session with a friend, and set to to make elderflower cordial. Actually, to make two, a short term one, and a keeping one. The Professor made the first, I made the second. Both have turned out very nice, and […]
I don’t often blog on a news item, but this one delighted me. Bullet-proof custard! — a weapon of mass depression in the days of that extinct species, the Seaside Landlady of the old school, has been reinvented in a new and exciting guise. Bullets lose a lot of momentum in liquids, or even liquid-ish […]
The Professor pointed out that we’ve been here for ten years to the day. It’s quite a thought. We haven’t entirely fought the house to a standstill, but mostly it’s sorted out, and thinking about the rural slum it was, I don’t think we’ve done too badly. The garden is foaming with roses and […]
Last Monday we were passing through one of those ambiguous little towns on the English-Scottish border — we were on the side of the bridge that was Scottish — when the Professor fell in love with a very nice young man with a fresh complexion, a frank expression, beautiful blue eyes, and discreetly fashionable […]