Saturday, 14 April 2007

After Friday, I was determined to have a relaxing weekend so spent most of the day in the garden. Never let it be said that I don't know how to have a good time. I pruned our elderly apple tree with some trepidation as I know they should be pruned in the winter. But this is an act of desperation: all other apple trees are already in bloom, but our is barely coming to life.

I was ably assisted by my nearly-three-year-old grand-daughter Bethany. She dragged the amputated branches from the tree to the recycling bin, where I chopped them up. She was a delight to work with and I was so proud of her.

Jackie and Bethany’s mum Rhiannon returned in the afternoon to help clear the rockery, and then Stuart arrived to cook us all a barbecue.

In the evening I finished reading Marking Time, Duncan Steel’s history of calendars. For my tastes, this was a near perfect book: he is an absolute master of his subject, his enthusiasm is apparent, he is quirky and eccentric, he respects his readers, he respects no sacred cows, he is humorous, and he speculates quite widely (and sometimes wildly) but always draws a clear line between fact and speculation. What a joy to read. And what a lovely end to a lovely day.