Update

Sorry not to have blogged recently. This is partly because everyone was in Cannes, except me - or at least that's how it felt; also, I was away for a few days for my "real" (i.e. the one that pays) job; and it's also been a bit of a thin news spell round here. I have managed to get some writing done - a few days away in Bristol seemed to unlock something or other - whether it was being in a new place, or being away from home and therefore away from chores and ordinary distraction, or whether it's that I've reached a point where my job no longer takes so much emotional energy because I've settled into it now, I don't know; whatever it is, I'm not complaining. I got two entries into "Gone in Sixty Seconds" the previous week, and several pages of novel down in Bristol. The next target is the final deadline of the BSSC at the end of June.

However, I'm having a period of enforced inactivity because I've had the worst allergic reaction yet to an insect bite - the nurse said it was the worst one she'd ever seen, which was peculiarly gratifying - always nice to alarm the medics! Like the time I got a scratch from a foxglove stem, my shin turned black, and when I rolled up my trouser leg to show the GP, her reaction was "bloody hell!" Anyway, I have a very sore leg, and am not going to be doing what I wanted to do this weekend, which was finish off putting in the sleepers for my raised bed vegetable patch. I might make it as far as the cinema this afternoon, because the alternative is staying here and listening to football through the wall - my neighbour has her radio on so loud it must be almost jumping off the table. I hate football, I double hate BBC local radio football commentary, and I treble hate the phone ins they have afterwards - the pain of my sore leg will be less than the pain of having to listen to bellowing fools all afternoon, so I will stagger out, whimpering every now and then, and may well console myself with ice cream.

Instead of digging, I finally got round to sorting out my flickr account. Pictures from LA last month are here, and the first garden pictures this year are here.

The radio blasting has begun so I'm off out in search of lunch - I should eat marmite on brown toast, real ale, and brewer's yeast. I'll be stinking like a brewery and farting like a herd of cows, but at least the sabre-toothed mosquitos won't like me any more.