Monday.

Photo I took last week in nearby village. Apologies for thin state of bloggage lately. It's art exhibition week again and we've both volunteered for rather more than our usual ration of stewarding and providing tea and cakes, as we seem to be shorter than ever of people to do the donkey work. It's the willing horse syndrome ( to mix, or rather continue, our metaphors). Went to London yesterday to view an auction. Grandson Matthew volunteered to carry my brief case and took charge of my catalogue as usual (finding the catalogue numbers of the items I was looking at before being asked) - he really is becoming a great help when in London. After viewing we went back to Lizzie's for supper. She had done us roast lamb (New Zealand) and vegetables, followed by a frangipane pudding. She really is a very good cook. Before I close must just record an incident in our public library recently. I was pottering round the whodunnit section and realised that instead of having the subject lettered on the spines of the books there was now a symbol - the mystery section symbol looked like a stylised tennis racket. I asked a passing library assistant what the symbol meant. "It's not a tennis racket," he said "If you look closely at it, you'll see it's a magnifying glass - like Sherlock Holmes used". "Yes, I can see it now," I said "But why has it been decided to use symbols rather than lettering the subject on the spine as you used to do ?" "It's for the benefit of people who can't read" he replied, totally straightfaced. Goodnight all.