April's Other Post.

No Beltane Eve fire this year. The mood is still too dark. I bought a pillar candle instead and have left it burning in the garden where I’m hoping it will stay lit through the night. That’s how it’s supposed to be, apparently.

This week’s brief note:

Watching month-old lambs forming gangs and playing games in the sunshine is a most efficacious – though regrettably short lived – antidote for depression. (Being smiled at by a young lady pitty/staffy cross who wants a bit of fuss is another.)

Happy Beltane, fire or not.

April's Post.

Since it’s about a month since I posted anything to this blog, and since it appears that a few people still check in, I thought it no more than courteous to explain that I’m not dead, nor comatose, nor lacking things to say, nor reclining on a silken couch being distracted by a comely wench (probably of Egyptian extraction) feeding me morsels of sweet fruit with her delicate and sweetly scented fingers. It’s just that the black dog has insomnia and refuses to leave my side. His persistent attention over the past few weeks has been – and continues to be – most galling.

In short, I don’t yet consider myself to be an ex-blogger.

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I saw the first swallow of the season today, in Mill Lane close to the Lady B’s erstwhile residence. I find it a little ironic that thoughts of the Lady B have been almost as persistent as the attentions of the black dog recently. She ran the London Marathon last Sunday and I’m very proud of her (not just because of the marathon, but the rest would be complicated.)

I hope to be back before the curtain falls.