Oh, to be in England...

It's April, alright, and outside there are branches hung with snow, hoverflies around the pond in the garden, and a hyperactive squirrel building a drey in the tree next door. He's hopping back and forth between that and the one in our garden, picking out suitable sticks, nibbling on them, and then taking them back the long way around for the fun of it.

There's a couple of neighbourhood cats playing Cat Chess - a light marmalade one, and a slim mackerel-striped one - and quite often the pair of magpies (which I think are nesting on our chimney) come and sit close enough so I can see just how ragged their tail-feathers are. It looks as though they're proud of the lacework - perhaps escaping cats is the pie version of extreme sports? A finch just now peered in through the window from a momentary perch on the fence, and the woodpigeons are coughing and booming. "There's NEW folk around here," they say.

This is what it means to see some morning unaware, sleepy and tousled and downright gorgeous.

QX!

Have just been informed that some of E. E. 'Doc' Smith's books are out of copyright and freely available on the interweb, at http://www.thalasson.com/gtn/gtnletS.htm#smithedw - I'm looking forward to re-reading some I haven't in many years.

Mind you, that's not always pleasant. The other week, I found Being a Green Mother - one of the Incarnations of Immortality series, by Piers Anthony, which I used to love - in a charity shop. I knew by now he was bad, but that was painful. You know how some writers can strike notes of purest gold, some of silver, and so on?

Anthony's bell is purest cardboard.