Monday, March 12, 2012

a perfect English afternoon

Current work: Vienna book
Listening to: Michael Bublé and Dean Martin
Reading: Susanna Kearsley, Season of Storms (excellent characterisation, excellent setting, excellent plot); Susan Moody, Losing Nicola (lovely to see Moody writing again – really liked her mainstreams as well as the Cassie swan series)

Really busy day on Friday. Delighted to see that some of the bulbs my stepmum and I planted are now out on my dad’s grave; he’d be very pleased with the crocuses (croci?), mini daffodils and mini irises. Lovely lunch out with my stepmum (was her birthday, so excellent excuse – and no, I didn’t have pudding); then school run and a quick dash to the city for an eye test.

I had the retinal photograph done this time and it was SO interesting. The optician was the same one I saw last time, a total sweetie who talked me through what he could see on the photo. (Hmm. Dear ed. Can I do an eye book?) My distance vision is still absolutely fine but, as my glasses are four years old and a bit scuffed, I’ve ordered another pair of my practically-plain-glass-with-prisms glasses for work. Near vision – well, we had a laugh about my eyesight being fine (I can still read 6-point print) but my arms are just too short. (Y’know when you see middle-aged women texting and they’re holding their phone at arm’s length? C’est moi. Tyrannosaurus Kate.) So it’s reading glasses for me, this time round, to let me bring a book back to a comfortable reading point.

Came home to the email I’d been waiting for all week – daughter’s results from her Grade One guitar exam. I knew she’d pass well, but she thought she’d messed up one section. Nope: because she got a distinction. Very proud of her.

Saturday, DH and son came into town with us for once. DH bought us coffee and cake in Carluccio’s. Very civilised :o) Plus we needed to buy someone a treat for exam results. (Someone else also has GCSE results due and I think a treat will be in order, but he forgot to collect his results on Friday so that’ll have to be next weekend now.)

Sunday, glorious weather so we decided to take the dog for a stroll along Marriott’s Way. He loved every second of it (especially the bit where he bounced about in the river, and the big puddle he just had to splash through). Blue skies, primroses in the hedgerows, leaves starting to unfurl and catkins in evidence (sorry, I forgot the camera). And there was a skylark singing his heart out as we tromped down the track. Went slightly further than we intended because Mr ‘Of Course I Know Where I’m Going’ actually didn’t (!), but we enjoyed exploring a bit more of our neighbourhood.

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