Not Dusty

Forests of people are leaving this office at the moment. Various circumstances are responsible but it’s all gone a bit roller-coaster at the moment. I just wish it would rain.

Last weekend was, in contrast, very peaceful, involving a standard English Village fete which had all the required elements of strange stalls, raffles and lots and lots of cake and tea. The evening was rounded off with a free performance of some scenes from A Midsummer Night’s dream by the village kids. It was of course Midsummer Day itself which conspired to elevate the whole thing to brilliance. I was stunned that so many young children had the discipline to learn loads of lines all on their own. Puck was especially charming, a sort of Alfie with magic. I did rant about the BBC retelling not having any proper atmosphere but it does help to have the thing on the very day. I was also able to pander to my new obsession with photographing clouds.

Several books have been finished in the last week or two. I finished the CloudSpotters handbook and can now tell the difference between a Cumulus-Congestus-Castellanus and Nimbo-Stratus-RosaHatticus. I then whistled through Tony Hawks’ A Piano in the Pyrenees which was much more laid-back than his previous comedy-fests though I suppose his serious, caring side came through in Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, something evident through his Moldovan Children’s Care Centre. A Piano in the Pyrenees seemed to be his settling down book. The last completed book was Offshore by Ben Fogle, his follow-up to his odyssey around the various outposts of Empire, this time visiting Islands closer to home, though Rockall might as well be in the middle of the Atlantic. Oh! It is! Not quite as well-written as the first; it felt a bit rushed and glib, though readable just the same. I am afraid I have gone back to an old favourite for the next book – Paradise News by David Lodge, a novel about theology, self-doubt and Grass skirts.