Half term

Current work: new Medical, c1
Listening to: (depends if we’re in or out – if we’re in, probably Bach, and if we’re out, whatever is in DH’s car... which means Badfinger or Nick Drake)

Reading: Nicola Cornick, Miss Verey’s Proposal (I always enjoy her books – great characterisation, I learn something new, and her heroines are wonderful. As are her heroes)

It’s half term this week, and DH is on holiday with us, so this means exploring and the chance to sneak in some photos. I also have to tidy my office, but I’m stalling on that as I’m after a new desk (on the grounds that my current one was a cheap one and a huge, huge mistake – it’s rickety and my monitor shakes whenever I type too fast, which is most of the time). Actually, I don’t want a desk per se: I want a small kitchen table. I did think about doing a deal with the kids and swapping my current desk for the one I used to use when my office was upstairs, but Son has used it for painting his models and it’s pretty scuzzy. So I did a bit of surfing yesterday. The one I have in mind is reasonably priced – and, being from John Lewis, it should be reliable, too.

Progress with the PC: I’m getting used to it. Slowly...

Weekend: pretty good. Out to dinner on Saturday (lovely food, even though the service wasn’t up to the usual excellent standard), and Sunday was spent lazing round/jamming on the guitar and piano (even DH joined in) and, um, playing Guitar Hero on the Wii (which is also what we did on Saturday afternoon, with DH’s brother). Have also discovered Scrabble Blast online, which is enormous fun. (Playing games? Moi? No, it’s limbering up... and also word games are an important tool in the prevention of dementia. Given the events of last year, I feel the need to keep my brain very active.) Madam played it with me and she surprised me with the best word in one of our games – ‘nemesis’. She loves word games as much as I do, so I foresee mother/daughter Scrabble matches like the ones I used to have with my mum. The deal is that it’s the joint score that matters, so I’ll swap letters with her if she needs them to get a better word to open up the board. (Defensive Scrabble – where people block the board by using three-letter words – is unutterably tedious, in my view. Dog-in-the-manger stuff: where’s the fun in that?)

Plans for today: depends on the weather. The kids have voted for the cinema; if it’s not raining too much, might also persuade them to go on the dragon trail (Norwich’s first Dragon Festival).

In the meantime, here’s the sunrise on the way to school, last month. (It’s my current wallpaper. I like the colours.)