Bluebells, redux

Current work: med (expecting tweaks on Vienna book later this morning)
Listening to: Beethoven
Reading: Yesterday’s Sun, Amanda Brooks

Starting with Friday – went out to dinner pre-theatre, but it was also a celebration as I’ve sold my 52nd book. (However, it’s a bit complicated and I need a chat with my editor before I can make a proper hoppy-skippy-bouncy announcement.)

The Winter’s Tale was excellent – Tony Bell was fabulous as Autolycus, playing it almost in a Keith Richards way. The whole cast did a great job, but the star of the show for me was Paulina (always was my fave character in the play). I still cannot understand Leontes. Or why Hermione forgave him. And that set me thinking. I have another lightbulb flicking very, very brightly in the back of my head. It’s ambitious, but worth playing with. Oh yes – and the text adapter for this production was none other than one of my favourite Renaissance lecturers from my undergraduate days: Roger Warren. I texted the Godmothers, the next morning, to tell them, and they both came back with exactly the same quote. (And if you can remember a lecture 25 years after you graduated – I rest my case.)

Saturday was my usual stroll in town with daughter (and yes, did involve a bookshop as well as coffee).

Sunday was really sunny in the morning, so I begged to do some method research for a scene in the current med.

Where we went was very, very muddy. (My poor wellies, on their first outing.)

It's a beautiful part of the world. (I love the contrast of colours: the green hedgerow, the yellow oilseed rape and the wide blue skies.)

And yes, it’s the same place we went to a couple of weeks back, when the bluebells were just coming out - Foxley. On Sunday, the woods were in full glory.

I know it’s usually called a bluebell carpet, but to me it always feels more like drifts of bluebells. Just lovely. (The white flowers are stitchwort, I think. My mum used to call them 'daddy's shirt buttons' and made up stories when I was tiny about the animals in the countryside, and how they paid for their goods with flowers. Such a shame that she never wrote them down.)

And I'm a happy bunny - sunny, but not HOT, so I can walk for miles. (Oh - talking of bunnies, we saw a couple of hares dashing about.)

Plan for today: training session at the gym (aka the Kate Un-lardy Project), then cracking on with the med while awaiting last tweaks from ed re the Vienna book. (And a chat. But that might be tomorrow.)