The royal wedding

It's nearly 10.00 o'clock on the 29th April - St. Catherine's day (unfortunately she died a horrible death tied to a wheel, hence the Catherine wheel firework) - and I'm about to start hunkering down in front of the telly for the great royal wedding.

Not that I'll see any more than any of you, being about 200 miles away from the action, but you have to have a peek at that dress and all the pageantry, don't you? Plus, John Rutter has composed some new music for the occasion and I love his stuff, so the service should be interesting.

We have a public holiday here in the UK, and since there's a Bank Holiday on Monday, it means another long weekend for folk. My son has been on holiday since Good Friday, as have many people over here, so it's just about the longest holiday in living memory.

Kate is already popular and William has always been popular. The royals are much more human than they have been in the past; Charles was actually allowed to go to school and university like normal people, and William and Harry followed in his footsteps.

I'm a royalist - I think we get great value out of our royal family. The queen is still working at the age of 84, and Prince Phillip at 89 - not many folk do that.

Well, the service starts at 11.00am, and the media is interviewing people camped out on the streets of London, some dressed in wedding dresses, and almost all wearing union jacks - and very excited.

Guests arriving now - must go - glued to television! Bye for now.

Amazing weather for a Bank holiday

We've had amazing weather for the entire Bank holiday weekend, a rare occurrence. The good weather, that is. Not the Bank holiday. They happen several times each year.

Ed and I had the whole family over yesterday, which was lovely but exhausting.

Today, youngest daughter and son went to the cinema together, so I took off on a long and leisurely walk. I found a new route all across country, which was great, except that I disappeared over the ankles in mud at one point. The ground looked firm - and there's been no rain for ages - but the field had been irrigated. Presumably all the water collected at the bottom of the field where the footpath crossed, but I failed to spot it. I was wearing walking sandals and my new, pristine ladies' chinos. They are still new, but no longer pristine.

I found myself in the most gorgeous bluebell wood, absolutely filled with bluebells as far as the eye could see. Took a picture on my phone camera but can't show you as I have no means of taking the photos off the phone.

Walked around four or five miles with very little of that on the road, so the route was a good find.

Except for the mud. Hopefully it will have walked off a square or two of chocolate...

Summertime

I can hear you humming it as you look at the title of today's blog!

Wonderful, sunny weather here in the UK. I played golf today (as badly as usual, but never mind. The company was great and the weather was perfect) and the temperature was 24 degrees. That would be hot even in June. I played wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt, and still felt hot.

Of course, by June I'll be complaining because it's freezing cold, but just at the moment England is a place of great beauty. On the golf course the trees are all bedecked in bridal splendour (it looks like that, anyway), the swans are nesting, the grass is green and there's plenty of run on the ball, which means that players like me can actually hit it a reasonable distance. The birds are singing and we shall soon have families of baby ducklings, baby goslings and baby cygnets.

Tomorrow youngest daughter and boyfriend are coming over from Belgium and staying for nearly a week, and son, and eldest daughter and family will be coming on Sunday. Hopefully they'll all arrive in time for church and our granddaughter will enjoy the Easter egg hunt afterwards.

At the moment life is quite wonderful. There! Now it's down in writing - to refer back to on those occasions when life isn't quite so good.

What's more, we have hot cross buns tomorrow.

Have a wonderful Easter wherever you are.

Theories of the resurrection

Yesterday was Palm Sunday and the start of Holy Week, and tomorrow is my final Lent group meeting.

They've been fun. We've compared the different gospel accounts of the main events of Holy Week - the procession into Jerusalem, the cleansing of the temple, the last supper,and the crucifixion. Tomorrow we're going to look at the different gospel accounts of the resurrection, and also "resurrection theories."

Did you know there are eight main theories, some of which were current in the first century, and some of which have grown since?

All very interesting stuff, so I'm expecting a lively time tomorrow!

A new rodent

I am the proud owner of a brand new rodent. What a difference this little friend is already making to my harassed online life. I should add that I've tied a knot in his tail - which was much too long - in order to prevent this one leaping from my computer onto the tiled floor in our conservatory, where I sit with my feet up and my laptop on - well, my lap.

No more hovering over words but refusing to actually settle on them. No more hesitating before responding to my clicks. No more skipping over six pages when I only wanted to move one paragraph.

So you see - my life has been transformed.

Missed golf yesterday in order to give a book talk at Scole Mothers' Union meeting. They treated me royally with an excellent lunch such as only ladies of the church know how to prepare, and they bought several of my books afterwards, even after I read them an extract about an MU meeting. I did emphasise that it was nothing like their meetings... Thank you, ladies for your hospitality and the fun we had together.

It occurs to me that if you wanted to be very kind to me , you might consider ordering my books from your local library, especially if you live far away from me. Our local library has a very modest ordering fee of just 55 pence per book. So for a dollar or so you get to read my books (yes, they're an excellent read, honestly!) and you do me a big favour at the same time, by getting the books into circulation in your area.

Heaven Spent

Babes and Sucklings

And if you've written a book, I'll do the same for you.

Meanwhile, have a great weekend and look forward to that Easter break.

Internet deprivation

There I was, in the middle of downloading a very large update for Ubuntu, when everything suddenly stopped and one of those irritating messages appeared:

This might be because you've typed the wrong URL, or it could be because your server is down, or maybe because ...

You know the type of thing. Being a patient sort of person (occasionally) I sighed deeply and went off to do something more interesting, like a bit of gardening or - horror of horrors - housework.

Ed tried on his computer - nothing, nada, nix. So we waited, trying again at half hour intervals, but still nothing.

By the evening, the air was a little bluer. Amazing how vulnerable you can feel without access to emails and even Facebook and silly things like that.

We tried again first thing next morning, but still no joy. Getting seriously annoyed by now. Towards the end of the afternoon I couldn’t stand it any longer, and rang Talktalk.

"Oh," said a delightful woman with a strong foreign accent, "you owe us £26.00 from March, so we cut you off."

"What? I pay by direct debit! Always have done - and I've been with you for years."

"It's because we've taken over from Tiscali. You'll be all right next month because we've set up the direct debit again, but you have to pay this bill separately."

Why? Isn't the whole point of direct debit that they take out what they need? I didn't point this out to her, but I did mention (well, that's a polite way of putting it) that it would have been nice if they'd bothered to tell me I needed to pay this one bill up front.

Still, not to worry. I paid immediately by credit card.

Then she said, "It should be on again in 48 hours."

"What? 48 hours? But I've just paid! How can it possibly take that long, especially when it wasn’t my fault in the first place." (My voice is rising at this stage.)

"You can try it earlier if you like."

Thank you very much!

So that's why I haven't been around much this week. Don't you just love telecom companies?

Mouse problems

I've been having mouse problems. Not quite the rodent type, but irritating nonetheless.

It all started when the touch pad on my laptop turned up its toes (so to speak) a year or so ago.

"Too difficult and expensive to repair," said the kind computer guru. "Attach a mouse - much easier, and MUCH cheaper!"

So I did. Bought a mouse for about a fiver and plugged it in. Worked perfectly straight out of the box, and we were happy together.

Well, happy until the day I dropped it onto the tiled floor in our conservatory. I recovered it in fear and trembling, uttering soothing noises as I cradled it in my hands, and bless the little soul, it worked again perfectly.

That was the first time I dropped it. Now we're up to the nth time, and my little friend has gone on tremulous strike.

It still works, just. But it trembles and hovers and is generally badly behaved. I've stuck it for several weeks, but today the moment came when I knew I'd have to splash out another fiver.

I found the selfsame mouse on Amazon (for under a fiver, actually, and free postage. How about that?) but would you believe it - I'd no sooner finished the transaction than my errant mouse started working perfectly.

Perhaps because I dropped it yet again...