More daylight!

Today I watched the sun set over Wendover woods at 4.45pm and after a clear blue day dusk did not fall until 5.30 - the lightest evening since the clocks went back and we lost an hour of precious daylight last October 31st. The mornings are lighter too with sunrise at 7.42, the earliest since the last of November. My bantams tell me that dawn is an hour or two before that even but as I am not a morning person my head is still down then. Something to celebrate then as I did by getting away from work early enough for a walk on the hills. The sap is rising!

One Day

I thought that if I kept the snowy header long enough the weather would catch up, but so far not. We have had warm (ish) and wet and windy and freezing but no more snow. Now that February is on the doorstep and the spring bulbs are peeking through talk of spring is in the air, but don't you believe it - I am betting on more of the white stuff.

Just spent an emotional weekend reading One Day by David Nicholls and the critics are right - enthralling. 'Big, absorbing, smart' says Nick Hornby and as a sometime Nick Hornby fan I have to say bigger, more absorbing and smarter. The essence of life, my life, the lost love and the missed trains and the unwritten letters in this clever, funny, bittersweet book. Not so young for an author (but ten years younger than me, little written, one poem published, in a pamphlet, ten years ago), I realise I am leaving 'concentrating on my writing' a little late. A bit of research reveals genius.  His Bafta nominated Much Ado About Nothing is a gem in my tiny dvd collection and his 2007 film adaptation of And When Did You Last See Your Father left me quietly moved when we finally got to watch it at our favourite cinema last month. Also rather late in the day (having listened to the critics) I watched Baz Luhrmann's Australia and wished I had caught it on the big screen. Camera work to die for as always, this antipodean Gone With The Wind swept me away. So feeling rather wrung out really.......