IT'S BEHIND YOU!

I never remember pantos being as noisy as that one was. Maybe my ears are getting frail. The loudest yeller was my middle g'son who alarmed the people on all side of him. He really has a VERY good pair of lungs. Number One g'son laughed convulsively at the slapstick to my surprise, I thought it all might be beneath a thirteen year old. Number three wanted the white mice back again, not the least interested in the horses they changed into. All enjoyed the ice-cream interval. Another tradition observed.

Happy New Year everyone! My Angel ( chosen at the Solstice Spiral ) is Purpose. Maybe I said that already. Yes, I did. Oh well - better get used to listening to me say everything six times. Time marches on. So far my only purpose has been to set the house to rights and return the earth inside to the outside (amazing how it clings to small wellies.) Any more weighty purpose will have to stand in line.

It was a good holiday, if exhausting, great to see my son, his wife and the Terrible Two. I miss them now, whilst glorying in getting my bed back. Each time they come up their resolution to move north gets a little firmer. Cornwall has many benefits, including employment, surf beaches and warmer temperatures but I am confident Scotland will win in the end!

No time or headspace for reading has left me a bit crazy, so lots of that going on between the mucking out sessions. Howl's Moving Castle is next on my list as I was given it for Christmas. It was a favourite of the children when I was still reading to them and Chloe christened her wood burning stove Calcifer recently, reminding me to ask Santa for a copy. Diana Wynne Jones was the best children's author of the pre-
Potter era IMO. Best for magic anyway. I loathe writers like Michael Molpurgo whose books are so harsh and ' real' and darkening.

Unnecessary to darken children's minds with horrors of war. They need respite. Cynically i suspect a novelist's or publishere's cany eye has
been caste toward the schools who want starters for history lessons and discussions.

My morning has just been cheered by our window cleaner, a very likeable good- hearted ex- Foreign Legion guy who always has adventures to relate. He spent Christmas Eve and Day in a cell because he inadvertently overstepped the exclusion zone set by a certain woman who is out to get him. Personally I think the polis enjoy having him inside. He kept the other prisoner's spirits up by loudly demanding paper and pencil to write a love letter, because he thinks he's in love (with another fair damsel needless to say,) yelled at the young first- timers who were weeping a bit because it was Christmas and all they got was mince an'tatties when they should have been at home by their own hearths etc.etc. He told them it was nae sae bad, mince and tatties were his favourite anyway and he'd buy them all a whisky on Boxing
Day.

One way to have fun is no' to let'm get you down in his opinion.

Getting back to work seems to have finished off the frivolity in me for the time being. I will return when I have refound my frivol!