I'm not long back from a week in the West Country with cybermule (H)! She met me off the coach and we took her son to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. Predictably we didn't get much past the geology and biology sections. I looked at a stuffed yellowhammer and remembered the little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese call I used to hear in the fields around my parents ( Read more... )

Every time I go in to sign on I have a wander around the Solihull charity shops. Today's visit yielded no new paperbacks, but I did find a postcard book of mythical creatures by British female artists - anybody want a beastie through the mail? The one card I know I'm going to hang on to is this one by Sandra Dieckmann:


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We're working our way through the second series of Yes Minister at the moment. It's superb; for all it was made over thirty years ago, it remains undated. I'm relishing the battle of wits between the drippy reformer Jim Hacker and the smug Machiavellian Sir Humphrey Appleby. I'd recommend this to everybody.

Yesterday was quiet, The thaw was well ( Read more... )

Well, a somewhat happier Ash than last time. My birthday was fairly quiet; Martin and I went out, mooched around, window-shopping, and ate Indian at the Taj Mahal in the evening. I got various books. The Peake I mentioned last time, and some weird fiction: Oliver Onions' "Widdershins", Mark Valentine's anthology of supernatural detective stories, " ( Read more... )