Dedication

            This is a problem I never expected to have.  Don’t get me wrong;  it’s a nice problem, but it’s still a bit of a puzzle.  I’ve dedicated books to my Other Half (aka Peter) to my Dad, to my sister, to a couple of old mates and to various of the offspring. Fine.  Good.   It’s a nice way of saying “Hi” and it’s a great thing to be able to do.  And, I imagine I’ll carry on doing that as and when the moment arises.

            But with the latest, After The Exhibition, I wanted to dedicate it to one of my literary heroes.  The trouble is, PG Wodehouse is dead and so, come to that, is Agatha Christie.  Which is very inconvenient of them.  So who else...?

            Well, there’s one author who I think is the bee’s knees who is still, happily, very much among us, and that’s JK Rowling. 

            Now, stop me if I’ve mentioned this before, but I loooooove Harry Potter.  I love the way the story’s set up, how the whole arc continues over seven books, how we’re pulled into to a totally believable other world that you could swear runs alongside our own.  I love the humour, the wit and the suspense. I love the characters and the plot, the quirkiness and the whole vast richness of the world.

            More than that, it’s a family affair.  I was introduced to Harry Potter by the girls when they were about ten or so.  From then on, discussing Harry was (and is) a conversation we could always have.  For instance, when Helen was seeking a distraction from a fearsomely academic essay on social anthropology she was writing, she turned up an internet Harry Potter quiz and we all had a happy quarter of an hour or so discussing wizards.

            So, I dedicated After The Exhibition to JK Rowling. I know she loves classic mysteries and the Robert Galbraith series is pretty good, so I thought there was an odds on chance she’d enjoy it.  Naturally I sent her a copy.  And, on Friday, I received a really friendly hand-written letter from her thanking me.

            That is just one of the nicest things ever. That’s special.  And it’s going in a frame.  Wow.  Life is good.

            PS:  so is After The Exhibition!

Take the Pascal Moon away from the first moon you thought of…

            Depending on where you live, you might not agree, but here in Manchester, the weather’s been great.  (That’s a sentence you don’t often hear!)   I’m only hoping it lasts until Easter Sunday so we can get out in the garden!

            Easter is, of course, the season of new life.  The name is the last remnant of the worship of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of the Spring, Estre or Oestre.  Easter Bunnies are the scaled down version of the Celtic sacred hares.  Exactly why Easter bunnies should bring eggs, I’m not sure, but I think it’s very obliging of them.

Talking of bunnies, Jessica, the eldest, got a baby rabbit.  He's called Buttons and is soooo cute.  I don't know if he'll produce an egg, but it seems unlikely

Every so often someone has a grumble about the way Easter moves about.  In church terms, this is a Movable Feast. (Yep, I know it sounds like a picnic) celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox.

However – pay attention at the back there -  the spring equinox is fixed for this purpose as March 21 and the "full moon" is actually the paschal moon, which is based on 84-year "paschal cycles" established in the sixth century, would you believe. It rarely corresponds to the astronomical or actual full moon.  Just to make life even more interesting, the Eastern churches, such as the Greek and Russian orthodox, count it up the same way, but use the Julian calendar (on which March 21 is April 3) and a 19-year paschal cycle.

            I think I’ll just check the calendar same as usual and celebrate at the same time as everyone else.

The new life bit is absolutely unmissable though. The garden’s gone mental.  Only a few weeks ago, there were bare patches on the so-called lawn and now it looks (from a distance) green.  All over. Mostly.

  Mind you, I did help it along. To the intense amusement of my Other Half, I bough a pair of rigid plastic sandals with huge spikes sticking out the bottom and walked around the grass, aerating the lawn.  Apparently grass-roots like a bit of fresh air, which makes you wonder why it grows underground.

  I mean, if  the roots likes air that much, why not stick them above ground to take a breather now and again, rather than waiting for someone with huge spikes sticking out of the soles of their feet to come and give it a dose of the much needed?  It seems like a rum state of affairs to me and one that might have given Darwin a bit of pause for thought.  It’s hardly survival of the fittest, is it?  Although, by the time two dogs and various humans have romped over it, it’s more a case of the survival of the flattest.

            Happy Easter everyone!  I hope you get lots of eggs.