I spent most of yesterday eating. Nectarines, cherries, raspberries, all with lashings of thick thick thick fresh fresh fresh cream. I just ate the last of the raspberries and cream for breakfast. I feel as happy and slitty-eyed as a cat.

I also spent a fair bit of the day yesterday waiting (in vain) for some sunshine to go take garden pix as promised. No sun, so no pix. But the sun is coming, oh yes it yes. Look at this forecast:

Yesterday, in honour of the holiday (and because between the live band up the street and the fools trying to blow the neighbourhood up with firewords and the dogs barking desperately at everyone to shut the fuck up I couldn’t hear myself think), I read a whole novel, start to finish, in one go. A Northern Light, by Jennifer Donnelly. It was a nicely written, very soothing turn-of-the-century historical set in the North Woods of upper New York State (1905 if a novel I saw referenced is anything to go by). The young woman escapes her gendered destiny as a farmwife and escapes to New York City–where we just know she’ll grow up to be a brilliant writer. I imagine that teenage girls who keep heartfelt journals would fall hopelessly in love with this book. As I’ve essentially read this story a thousand times I merely liked it. If you’re looking for a very competent read, with no shocks but one or two gentle surprises, set mostly in the outdoors in spring and summer, I can recommend it.

Now I’m going to get back waiting for the weather forecast to come true. And work on Hild. And ponder this workshop I’ll be teaching in Los Angeles in August.