A Lot Of It About

A lot of the visitors to The House of Stories are American. If you're from the US, you may have heard that the British are always talking about the weather. It's true, we do that. We have to. There's a lot of it about.

Tony and I had two wonderful days on Holy Island at the weekend. If you don't know about it, it's a tidal island off the coast of Northumberland, cut off by the tide twice in every twenty-four hours. It's also wild and windswept, a haven of wildlife, and the cradle of British Christianity, and none of this begins to describe it. It's often called a 'thin' place, where there's little to separate earth and heaven. The wind sweeps across the North Sea, and the North Sea changes colour constantly. We walked for miles, with the wind or against it.

We came home on the first official day of spring, which coincided with a cold snap. On Wednesday morning, we woke up to three inches of snow which had flattened the daffodils. By the time I went out it was slithery slush, and today was warm enough for Tony to sit outside with a book. Now do you understand why we go on about the weather?

And isn't it a long time since I told you about The Archers? I know some of you are dying to know what Pip did next. She's still with Useless Toby. If you want to slap the pair of them, you'll have to join the queue. Eddie and Clarrie are doing B and B, Linda declared war, Justin proposed to Lillian and Lillian had a fit of the vapours. David and Ruth's cows caught Wobbly Hereford Disease or something and have been given the vaccine. If they've got any left they could give Toby a shot.