That's not small, it's my newt

A much needed chilled weekend. Watched the Frasier series 9 DVDs from my sofa. Also playing guitar, and combining these activities with a jazzular riff to accompany the Frasier theme tune.

Otherwise I dealt with a backlog of bills and other drivel sent in envelopes, laundry, cleaning, and all the thousand other natural chores that flesh is heir to, amid the usual flashes of rage about not having servants.

There is a nasty smell of damp under the stairs. This provoked by rain that would have Noah eyeing the skies and reaching for a brace of aardvarks. The damp joins the list of things about which Something Must Be Done: a damp course in due course.

On Saturday I baked a layer pie, which is a pie containing layers of onion and egg and pork of my mother's invention circa 1970. Actually really nice hot or cold. And, having strata of various colours, delights both eye and gullet. It is especially fine cold, and served with hot chips.

Out and about this Sunday afternoon. Spent some time today in a wood near the foot of the South Downs where the sky was holding six paragliders. I enjoyed looking down into a clear stream and seeing lots of small newts progressing carefully over the muddy bottom. Kept making me think of salamanders in fire as a kind of opposite. The Sussex woodland is a bit squelchy at the moment, but moss seems to be thriving. I've never seen such thickly succulent carpeting over old logs and tree trunks. Stupidly I forgot to take my camera.

Chatting to Mum in the afternoon who is looking forward to the delivery of a phat new stereo system thanks to an insurance payout. The last one shuffled off its mortal coil after a lightning strike had damaged a tree next door and sent a spear of wood hurtling over the house.

And in the evening caught up with Toby, who had just returned after he and Romy had been lurking out at Deviation Road for the weekend, the lucky things. Hopefully he will send me some photos soon of what sounds like an amazing trip to Argentina that he took with Romy. Some of his descriptions were quite magical of the things he'd seen down there, like difference of the southern stars.

And so to bed.

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