All rosy in the garden

Saturday - no work, no visitors, no job applications to write. In fact I get to have some free time! Go to the garden centre and buy compost and pots to pot up the patio roses my inlaws gave me. I am a real newbie to gardening - it’s the one thing I do where it really doesn’t matter if I totally screw it up, and that makes it therapeutic. I’m constantly amazed by stuff that manages to grow in spite of my mauling and drowning it.

Also hop on to good old LibraryThing, fabulous web 2.0 amateur cataloguing tool (I can hear you raising your hands in horror). Check out my complete library here. I add a new book to my personal special collection. This is a small but growing collection of first edition children’s books from the 1970s and 1980s. A little indulgence to remind me, in this age of e-everything, that a book is a Precious Thing. My new book is a copy of The golden key by Victorian writer George MacDonald, beautifully illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Sendak is so much more than just Where the wild things are - not that ‘wild things’ isn’t fantastic. I used to work with someone who is an expert on George MacDonald. Incredible how talented librarians are, and how generally interested in life and stuff.

Continue writing and mailing my reception invitations. It’s not really the upfront stuff that makes me nervous; it’s more the thought of keeping tabs on the many and varied activities of the group, scanning the political landscape and so on. Daunting. But it’s a team effort, right?

Warriors of the deep really IS a turkey. The Myrka is a hopeless lumbering thing that can’t seem to even break through polystyrene. The whole thing feels like a home video of kids in a school playground. Sigh. If CDG was a sci-fi monster, I hope it would be something infinitely more charming and effectual.