... will oft gang awry, or somesuch.

The grand plan for today, as the church I plan to vist is only a few minutes walk away and has its service at 12:00 (complicated back story), was to wander down to the coffee shop in the retail park, indulge in coffee and pastry and read the Sunday papers... the kid of thing 'normal' people might do.  Alas I woke up to torrential rain, so the thought of going out has become less attractive... I will go to worship there, but unless the weather picks up will spend the morning at home enjoying the cooler ambient temperature the rain brings.

In the meantime, you might enjoy this HT Steve Holmes... which leaves me wondering what might my 'rock song' be, and why...

Today ended up being a chill-out day... lolling around with a novel... can't recall when I last did that.  It was lovely!

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson was recommended by a friend.  Reading it pretty much in one sitting it was easy to keep track of what was what.  Some interesting ideas, creatively explored... hints of process theology mixed in with reincarnation and some (seemingly) original thought.  As some one who periodically has 'deja vue' moments, I found it was an interesting approach to this phenomenon.

I think I now have three unread novels left on my kindle, so will be up for more recommendations any time soon..

Today as part of my research thinking I decided to read through my 'offline private journal' which charts my cancer story in a way that includes things unsuitable for public consumption (such as lots of photos) - at ~45,000 words, it is not a quick read.  It's interesting to note that for the most part it is factual, at least after I'd got over the initial shock, but that it does chart quite honestly the times of greatest fear and some survival stats I'd forgotten about (being slightly worse than the ones that live in my head!).  It also notes the desire to undertake the research I'm now doing.

I then decided to copy the relevant blog posts since my diagnosis into a Word file so that I could re-read and electronically access them more easily.  Perhaps I should say, I started to do that - as it is painstaking work sifting through the archives and copying the posts in (roughly) chronological sequence.  So far I have copied six months worth (the most prolific period I think) and it runs to around 25,000 words.  It was quite interesting to note peaks and troughs in posting along the way.  To be fair, once I get to the end of the 'active treatment' dates the blog posts will thin out dramatically, and I will depend more on the private journal, but I expect that, between blog and journal, I have scribbled (typed) more than 100,000 words related to that part of my life.  That's pretty verbose!

As far as the research itself is going, tomorrow I will close the survey, but in the responses I have received there is plenty of good material with which to work, and I can see a fairly substantial (for which read 'lots of words') paper or two emerging.

First ripe tomato of the season now ready to harvest from my window cill (sill).  Given the way the plants are still growing, I have renamed it a triffid-berry.

Not quite sure why it has a big black splodge at the base, but it is good to have one ripe fruit anyway... and a lot more on the way.

Thank you B for the plantlings from which these triffids resulted!

Holly, "what DO you mean, I'm sitting on your research notes?  This block of paper is just the correct size for me to sit on... and I DID stop walking across the laptop keyboard..."