- "and the living is easy"

My neighbour is a bit fed up because the raspberry bushes on our side of the fence stop her vegetables getting enough light. As we are friendly, this isn’t much of an issue. Her problem is really on the other side where the simply enormous ash tree is threatening to take over the universe, like something out of Doctor Who (and who but Signs to pick up on its occult intentions). Things very easily just grow apace here and everything wants to become forest. Drop a conker on the ground and next morning you’ll find a cluster of chestnut trees invading your little bit of garden, not exaggerating. Life, eh? Gets out of control very quickly.

One of my kids has got through to the finals of a reality TV talent contest thingy and – er – this is going to be on the telly soon and could all get quite big, and I’ll just shut up about that for now. Another one has got a new Amour and is preparing to put on a great big thing of a show at the Edinburgh Fringe in August. Mr. Signs has decided to have a party for his birthday this month. He is undertaking a part-time training to become a shrink and seems to have got in touch with his inner party animal. I must have said this before, but a good image is worth re-using: I feel a bit like Mickey Mouse walking off the edge of a cliff – everything is ok so long as you don’t look down. And Mr. Signs, being a Gemini as my father was, has this unshakeable belief that the sun always shines on his birthday. Which it had better do in the light of the number of people invited, or how they will all fit into Signs cottage doesn’t bear thinking about. In fact, thinking in too much detail about stuff at the moment is something I am not doing, sometimes it just works best that way.

My throat still aches and the glands around my neck feel swollen. It is June, dammit – what gives? Not going to think about that either.