Busy week -- but feels like spring coming in here, now the snow has been and gone. First frogspawn in back garden pond, spring crocuses, winter irises and first daffodils coming out. We have a new back fence, instead of a decrepit old one with a couple of collapsed panels (so replacement well overdue).

Yesterday, I bought myself a v. elegant miniature conservatory -- dolls house size, already crammed with various miniature garden stuff that had been lying about collecting dust outside #1 dollshouse. That was on the way back from having a suspicious patch of sun damage on my nose checked out by dermatology specialist -- just 'solar elastosis' not incipient cancer patch.

Last week, for the first time, I hit 3km in the swimming pool --120 lengths in 105 mins. And have picked up a couple of bits of permaculture consultancy/teaching paying work at local community gardening projects over the next couple of months.

Today: I've just had a couple of tele-meetings (on my work Blackberry, which I'm slowly taming) and will shortly be setting off for a meeting about the new UK Household Longitudinal Survey. JN has today off, and is pottering about the sunlit back garden -- wearing a fetchingly brief pair of sea-blue shorts and my flip-flops, though I still reckon its woolly jumper, jacket, gloves and woolly hat weather. This weekend, we'll do our Saturday shop at the local Food Co-op up at Broadwater Farm and get lunch at the Community Cafe that runs alongside it. And the rest of the weekend we have free -- no doubt JN will have a busy list of what he thinks I should do to fill it up. Fingers crossed it will be nice for getting stuck into garden and allotment.

Hope you are all safely clear of the awful fires, and all your friends likewise -- I see there seems to be a cyclone battering around Broome. Now, off to catch my bus...