under another sun

A welcome low key day Sue and John are excellent hosts, and I was able to creep about doing little without feeling I was short changing anyone. Sue and Lorraine went out this afternoon, and I finished the Sara Maitland A Book of Silence which I found wonderful, and was sad to have finished. Also took the opportunity to review my current situation with my projects and make a few decisions.Then a long chat with John over a wide range of issues from royalty, football and paleoanthropology, before settling down to watch a bit of football as the European cup of Nations has started. Lorraine's celebrations when she learned about this new spate of football curiously muted, although she does have updates on some iPad app which ping through with important news about, say, the Croatian team. Evening eating curry with Sue and John and their two lively daughters Harry and Maiti, and one of their pals. Much singing coming down the stairs in the evening as the adults watched a little TV later ...

Steady rain, my ankle sore and all joints aching. Naturally feeling a bit sorry for myself, and a trip to the quack is called for. I slept a lot and had nice chats and companionable silences with Lorraine, who managed to relax more today between getting her car MOT and ordering new shelves for our study area, plus some plants for the aquarium. I downloaded an excellent book by Sara Maitland onto my kindle. A book of silence is a jewel of a book describing Maitland's quest for the meaning of silence. I read it voraciously. It was suggested to me by Matt's composer pal Barry Mills, after we'd been talking about John Cage's famously silent 4'33".