Pleasings ...

Pleasings... that might not be a word, but Friday always feels like a good day to think about things I have been pleased about this week, and they are numerous and not necessarily in order of pleasingness and this first picture is not exactly riveting, but my joy is unconfined on all counts...

Bookhound and the Kayaker have sanded and re-varnished the Book Room windows outside before the winter...

And they have swept the chimney to my woodburner and cleaned the flue, so it is all ready for ignition...

It has been The Kayaker's turn to be Best Man at a friend's wedding. He apparently 'nailed' his speech and the bride very kindly sent him back with one of the table arrangements for me. The scents have been wafting across my desk all week...

Someone who reads here very kindly sent me an Orla Kiely scarf because they saw them and remembered how much I loved Orla Kiely. This arrived in the post when I was a few hours into a long session of my online day job on the Cancer & Serious Illness morning. Opening this package was a very big pleasing indeed.

I realised, thanks to Clare Balding, that I might like reading autobiographies after all, so when Dreaming in Colour by Kaffe Fassett arrived, and on the day I finished My Animals and Other Family, I moved seamlessly from horses to knitting, simple as that.

My lasting recollection of Caitlin (apparently pronounced Catlin) Moran was the fact that she had written one of Offspringette's very most favourite books The Chronicles of Narmo, a book that Offspringette would never part with. I somehow by-passed How to be a Woman, and will catch up with it when I feel the need, but I was pleasingly pleased with the arrival of Moranthology, some collected and very funny writings by Caitlin 'Catlin' Moran. I have made a start and am chuckling merrily.

I had an e mail from a psychologist by the name of Miles Richardson who asked if I would be interested in reading his book Needwood..a simple journey into the local countryside which pulls out a universal story about out connection to nature and the landscape. The book is ringingly endorsed by Professor Paul Gilbert, author of The Compassionate Mind, of which I am a huge fan, so of course I said yes please and thank you very much.

And my final pleasing, and remember I said in no particular order. The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane , a book we have loved and championed here, has been long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize. I said, in front of Robert and an audience, as I introduced him atPort Eliot Festival, that if the book didn't win prizes I would eat my walking boots, so I am delighted that I have now taken the first step along the way to not having to munch my Scarpas. 

And as I think about my Pleasings and record them here it has been to a background of Rhosymedre by Vaughan Williams playing on the radio. It is the music I walked down the aisle to thirty-six years ago last week and I still love to hear it. I remember wanting a gentle entrance rather than a fanfare.

The Tinker has had his day surgery on his outer ear, plus a bit of plastic surgery reconstruction on it too, and he is thankfully recovering well, albeit bemoaning that his profile is now ruined and he might have to have the other one done to match etc. I also want to send our good wishes for a speedy recovery to Erika, a regular here, who has had surgery this week too.

Oh yes, and one more late entry for this week's Pleasings... Offspringette, now settled in her first teaching job, heard that she has the funding, via her school, to finish the dissertation element of her Masters degree in Education. Hooray.

So how about you...any Pleasings for you this week?? No matter how seemingly small it would be very pleasing to hear about them.