Blogs!

For some reason I have been unable to access my blog. No matter how I tried my password was rejected and I could not get help. I do hate technology! Today I have access!

Winter, the boys from NIWA assure us, has been the coldest for a long time but will now become milder as the la nina influence fades. Good. August brings calves and lambs to my part of the world and I hate it when the weather seems determined to wipe them all out.

The firewood pile - all 40 cubic metres of it - has shrunk more quickly than it should have but I have read a vast number of books, catching up on old favourites and discovering new authors.

Terry Pratchett has gone from good to great. I am not a great fan of the witch/wizard novels but have loved all the Ankh-Morpork, Sam Vimes novels, and 'Going Postal' and 'Making Money' made me laugh as I came across all those neat little jibes at things beloved by businesses, banks, and bureaucracies. Pratchett can take the micky out of so much of modern society and make you think.

Alexander McCall Smith gets better and better as he goes on writing about ordinary and mundane people and their lives, showing us that they are far from mundane, but in fact, unique, original and special. His is a very special talent.

I am glad I do not have a television. On a night like this with a full moon silvering the world and the Southern Cross gleaming I would far rather sit here with a book, reading by moonlight, and gazing out at the winter night.