Monday

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Very Mondayish. Have managed to bash out 1200 words, which has exhausted my capacity for rational thought, should such a thing exist in me in the first place. I am squinting at the screen like a cross old lady who has lost her reading glasses.  The thing that is most interesting me is the lone jackdaw who struts and hops about the lawn in front of my study window, pecking for worms. He has the manner and gait of a gent out of PG Wodehouse. All his friends live over in the beech avenue to the west; he is the only one who comes here, I have no idea why. Also, a single black-faced gull has flown in from the coast, and is show-boating about in front of the house. So really all I am capable of are random avian musings.

Luckily, the national treasure that is Michael White has written a particularly funny piece today on mad Liam Fox and his Afghan blunder, so if you want some sense, I direct you here. He makes an especially good joke about David Cameron surely having some nice Afghan schoolfellows. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility. After all, Eton educated King Leopold of the Belgians, a chief of staff in the Indian Army, various Thai, Romanian and Yugoslav princes, the Maharajah of Jodhpur, the Prime Minister of Thailand, and the homicidal King Dipendra of Nepal. It was not all dukes and rolling green acres. Why not an Afghan warlord or two?

In the meantime, I leave you with a couple of random pictures for your visual pleasure, and apologise for shocking lack of coherence. Better tomorrow.

The white lilac, getting ready to burst into flower.

The very first of the mint.

The startling scarlet bud on the plane tree.

My favourite old tree stump. It looks like some kind of ancient sea monster.

A glimpse of the blue hill, through the trees.

A moody black and white shot of my favourite gateposts.

There. Now I am going to have a little rest.