Books and... bagels?

Ah! That solves it. I answered a post on the Bluechrome Books blog which was offering a free book to any blogger that was offering to read and review it. I put my name down. This, remember, was at the end of April. Imagine my surprise this morning when a parcel arrives with FOURTEEN books in it -- all fresh off the press. One of them I already have - Your Messages, the result of a highly inventive online collaboration which ran during November 2007, where contributors were given a single day to write a response in exactly 300 words to a message of exactly 300 words created by Lynne Rees and Sarah Salway. I loved this book, though I would say that because its packed full of stories by people I know both in blogland and in real life and, of course, one by me.


Freshly mown fields. There's nothing quite like them. True, this is a piece of council recreation ground rather than a real field cultivated and mown for hay - Ah! what memories of childhood antics that evokes -- but still, pleasant enough.

Is it a sign that I'm an adult, I wonder, that although i want to lie on the grass and look up at the sky, I don't because (a) my clothes would get covered with bits of grass and it's me that does the washing and (b) I have too much to do at home - two stories and a novel to get on with, for a start!

Rust.

A year ago these were two brightly polished Chinese massage balls - the kind that tinkle when you manipulate them with your fingers. They had a couple of spots of rust on them and K was throwing them out. I took them for the garden instead. The gravel they stand on used to be cobalt blue but had faded over time.

I think they look stunning now. I'm very partial to the absolute beauty of rust. If I had a large enough bank account, I'd commission sculptures in raw steel.




And K made lunch so I didn't have a bagel after all.