5 February

DHL, in the shape of yet another polite young Latvian or Lithuanian, has finally collected our duff projector to take it for repair. I spent a bit of yesterday afternoon making sure that Martyn's projector and my laptop worked properly together. Perfect - phew! Then when I got to the Women's Institute gathering in the evening, not a sign of communication between the two. It was some comfort that the WI was also distracted by technology problems of its own: the plumbing to the tea urn was refusing to deliver, and ladies were climbing on chairs with bowls of water to fill it up. With the information technology, I adopted the engineering approach: press every tit in sight, and only if that fails, RTFM (read the manual). This normally fail-safe technique eventually worked, so red faces temporary only. And the tea was fine too. The talk went OK, I think. We normally give a short presentation of facts and figures about the Magistracy, then get the audience to work through a little case study, arriving at a verdict in a shoplifting case, then, once we've told them that the correct answer is 'Guilty', going on to sentence. This time, at a colleague's suggestion, I put the presentation in the middle, using the trial part of the case study as the ice breaker. Resident Educational Consultant tells me it is sound practice to alternate the doing and the listening, and I think I'll try it again. I may have an opportunity: a visitor from another WI demanded my contact data.

Art class was a little less frustrating than last time: I built a bit more depth into my Col du Rousset piece, though I think it will find its way on to the 'for sale' list sooner than some of the others. The longer I work a piece, the less likely it is to turn out OK in the end. We're off to inspiration country in a couple of months, so maybe I'll look out for the closer landscapes that I seem to find easier and more satisfying.