Autumn

Leaves everywhere, rain on and off all week, grass still growing like mad, with the chances of being able to cut it again this year dwindling with each wet day.  The roads are very muddy, so there’s no point troubling the car washers for the moment.  (Shame, since they owe me a freebie!)  This should be the week that our neighbours’ tree surgeons cut back the hideous, light-stopping leylandii, and fell the enormous ash tree, which has not quite got to the stage of dropping its leaves big time.  Three or four days  till the work is due to begin, so we may with luck have less leaf clearing to do this year.  We still have the other neighbours’ oak and silver birch trees to contend with, however.  By and large, it’s worth the work to have such pleasant green surroundings.  We’ll need to get our man in soon to trim the hedges, prune the cherry tree and take the leader out of the young birch, which is growing vigorously.  We're also coming up to the renewal of the home insurance, and the six-monthly water bills, so we may have to live off our fat for a while. 

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, we’re waiting for a sign of life from the builder who is supposed to be re-pointing the end wall of the French house.  He was due to have begun last Monday, but our spies report no action so far.  All very frustrating: I shall need to go down to inspect the work and pay the builder at some point, but can’t book flights until we know the work is well into its stride.

I’m very busy with the hobby at the moment.  I sat on Friday for the third time this month, and spent two other days last week interviewing.  More of the latter on Monday, and a related meeting on Tuesday, so Martyn is not seeing a lot of me just now.  It being his birthday today, the weather is of course grey and wet.  At lunch time I treated him (last of the big spenders) to fish and chips at a nearby pub.  It was very good, but I’m now being reminded that I can no longer comfortably eat big meals. 

So the Booker jury has selected The Luminaries for this year’s prize.  Unlike the other five on the list, I’m really struggling with it.  It is very wordy, and I find the language annoying: it has in places a Trollopian ponderousness, yet also uses late 20^th century clichés which seem uncomfortable in the context.  The characters are unattractive and the action pedestrian, and the best I can say for it personally is that it helps me to get back to sleep on insomniac nights. 

Our broadband suddenly went out of action this afternoon.  It transpires that the whole of Disgustedville and its surrounding area is out of action.  So it’s not obvious when I’ll get this blog posted.  [Couple of hours later, we're back in touch with the world.]