Where do the days go?  I guess I've been sitting around with my nose in a book or the kindle so much lately that it hasn't occurred to me to do any scribbling.  I've come across a writer of whodunits called James Craig, and although his journalist background doesn't make for great writing, his characters are strong, his yarns good, and the 99p ticket on kindle is splendid.  I've read another Kate Atkinson recently, a Jo Nesbø, a truly weird whodunit by Bateman, and a fascinating book on typography called Just my Type.  I gather there's a thriller set in Finland coming my way from an art class colleague.

A propos, I knocked off a quick acrylic sketch on Thursday last, using one of the views we enjoyed at Spurn Head last October.  I may do one or two more, since the light was  lovely and the beach scenes quite inspiring.  But I'm looking forward to getting back to the Corbières for inspiration. 

Forges-l'Evêque is more than usually chaotic at the moment: we're redecorating the cloakroom, and the erstwhile contents are scattered along the hall, round the kitchen and, in the case of the WC, out in the conservatory.  We (ie Martyn) will be re-tiling the floor, and the installations needed re-sealing anyway, so we've gone radical.  The ceiling is painted, as is the woodwork, and the ghastly wood flooring was last seen in a skip at the local tip.  The original flooring was thermoplastic tiling, fitted round the base of the WC, and its relationship with the concrete floor beneath was somewhat patchy.  Well, the loose tiles are now looser still and out in the bin, and the next errand is to seal the floor prior to levelling it for the tiles.  I'll probably paint the walls before the new tiles go down!  Definitely getting too old for DIY.

We got our local chap in to cut the hedges for us the other day.  His portfolio is pretty wide: for example, he has an enormous chicken shed with ample field and wood for the birds to get out and roam in, he raises pigs, stables horses and runs the local football club.  We rarely buy eggs anywhere else, and his hedge-fettling costs less than half as much as the last lot charged us, and is actually better.  So, we have a rather better backcloth to the garden as it comes back to life.  The snowdrops have gone over now, so I'll split a few clumps in the week and distribute them.  Crocuses and daffodils are giving us a good display, and there are some primulas and polyanthus in flower.  The roses are responding well to a vicious pruning and a spot of fertiliser, and some of the perennials are coming up again: sedums, lychnis and aquilegias in particular.  Our travelling plans complicate the seed-sowing schedule a bit, but I dare say we'll be OK if I sow in mid-April.  I'll probably put our four tomato plants out into foster care while we're away.

As for the local wildlife, Martyn found a couple of newts yesterday while he was clearing out the pond, and our familiar pair of mallards has returned.  I'm sure it's the same pair: their behaviour is identical to that of the pair the visited us last year.  Like last year, the female came and tapped with her bill on the french window, prompting me to go and refill the tray with seed.  Once she's had enough, she wanders off and starts getting noisy, then takes off, closely followed by himself.  Always in that order.  Yesterday was the first time we'd seen them swimming in the pond this year.  Our thrush is still serenading us, and we have frequent visits from the robin and the wren.  I haven't seen a woodpecker in the garden for a few weeks, but we certainly hear them drumming in the trees nearby.  There are signs that the blue tits are using the nesting box over the kitchen door.  And someone is eating the goldfish.  We've seen a heron down at the pond, so have pensioned off the plastic decoy.  The fact that there have been dead fish at various places in the garden suggests that it's a cat that's doing the damage.  I've seen one lurking in the bushes.  Foxes and owls punctuate the dark nights (we have no street lighting, and like it that way), and when the wind's in the right direction, we hear the cows from a nearby farm.  So, as suburbs go, it's a fairly rural one, and we love it.