Catch up

Six months of working at getting the book out - from quotes from the printer to signing copies in Waterstone’s - then a domestic to-do list of tax return, etc, etc, then a week of lolling in the sunny garden.

Since then we have made yet more jam – the last batch of which had to be boiled a second time the following day because the jam-tester of the family is impatience personified and the jam was NOT actually at setting point the first time.

Yes, yes. I am the jam-tester. Dave, bless him, did all the emptying out and washing of jars for the second attempt. We have now made sixty-something jars of jam and the five bushes in the garden are still laden with blackcurrants, so I am picking them and giving them away. There’s something magic about those bushes. I keep giving bushes away and the next year the ones that remain seem to up their fecundity to make up for the loss.

As well as jam-making, there has been an awful lot of yearning going on. I haven’t seen my Californian family since last November and it’s another two months until I see them again. Now the publishing frenzy is over there is more space for the yearning to fill. Lux will be one at the end of the month.

I’ve also been yearning for Wensleydale, so Zoe and I went up at the weekend. It was as beautiful as ever.