Bits and bobs

(Flip snap, low res, but I love pussy willows -that'll get the spam crawlers excited!)

A couple of good things that seemed way off on the horizon are now rapidly approaching:

• My fellow residents at the Fielding Programme are now up on the web and I'm really looking forward to meeting them. I'm busily gathering together notebooks and computer drafts of things, in the hope that I will get peace to look at them with a fresh, unjaundiced eye.
• My fellow blogger at A Walk Around the Lake, Pam Hart, and I are working on the choice of theme for the summer issue of qarrtsiluni, with helpful input from Managing Editors Beth Adams and Dave Bonta. (I must admit that spelling qarrsiluni plays havoc with my dyslexic, chemo'd brain, I have to cut and paste it ever time.)

A few other random things that I'm enjoying just now are:

• BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week, The Old Boys' Network, which is the diary of the former head of Westminster School. I'm no great fan of private education, but this is really well written and full of interesting anecdotes and insights into how a man in this position exercises power and judgement.
• Sowing seeds, I never tire of doing this, or taking pleasure in seeing a bean sprout or a lettuce stick its head above the parapet, even if a slug immediately takes it off.
• Warmth that doesn't require central heating.
• The prospect of dinner and a night at the theatre tonight with an old friend.