under another sun

Off to Lorraine's friend Carolyn who was hosting a coffee morning and art sale on behalf of Macmillan. Looked at her pictures, she is very good at detailed botanical work. There were a dozen or so ladies who'd worked in the upper echelons of Education or who still did, talking a good deal in the kitchen. I repaired into the garden after buying a cup of tea and a bit of blueberry cake and basked in the sun beside a little garden pond. Soon joined by two men with whom I happily discussed football, gardens and fishing until it was time to melt away again, with Lorraine having bought a picture of snowdrops. Lorraine and I then then drove off to a Sussex Nature Conservation area, Burton Mill pond, and the Burton and Chingford ponds . Had an hour and a half walk through woods, and past swanned and dragonflyed ponds. Also walking past somewhere called The Black Hole, and walked on a plank walk above the peaty black water and dense vegetation. It is connected with ancient ironworks w...

The Gnome is steady A pinch and a punch for the start of the month, but not much to report. Completely useless this morning. Managed to sleep through my alarm. When I woke up I was in plenty of time for the later train, but for some reason managed to miss this too. Heroically late to work. Once there, however, The Gnome and I were suddenly very busy - and spent time running about the building and doing scraps of this and that and trying to come up with a big idea for the new pitch. I stayed behind in the evening to compensate for being so tardy in the morning. The Gnome stayed there too, and he is quite cheerful at the moment and he can be very funny. His steadiness is a great help sometimes, and sometimes I take for granted how much I rely on him. Read more about Sussex dragons on the train coming home. Sussex was once a good place for dragons. The one in St Leonard's forest sounds disgusting: "There is always in his tracke or path left a glutinous and slimie matter (as by a ...