It has been a simply glorious, gorgeous, beautiful, lovely, whatever adjective you prefer, weekend.  Warm sunshine, almost clear blue skies by day and deep velvet by night.  Crocusses (croci) have passed, daffodils begin to brave the elements, rhodedendrons burst into cooour and golden catkins hang from the tree opposite my living room window.  Buildings glow in the morning sun, early mist lifts to reveal the contours of the hills.  Spring is abroad.

Yesterday's visiting preacher was using 'signs' as his theme... the rainbow sign of God's covenant the Galatians fruit of the Spirt as sign(s) of God, and our lives as signs of Christ for the world to see.

Yesterday evening we pondered the power of words to build or to destroy, noting that context and tone can be as significant as the words themselves.

It's no accident that Lent and Easter coincide with northern hemisphere spring, brimming with signs of new life, new hope, new energy.  I guess the challenge is that our lives, our words and our actions become signs of that hope.

I almost feel a twee Victorian hymn coming on... but I'll spare you that!

... about doses due to the radiation leak in Japan: see here.  This is the first person who has drawn a comparison with radiotherapy doses, something I'd fought shy of doing on this blog as it can be misleading.  (I'll be getting around 50,000 mSv over 5 weeks, albeit to a small part of me)

This does not belittle the fact that the Japan situation is a mess (and friends in the UK civil industry are astonished at how some of it has been handled) but it does give an alternative perspective to some of the other horror stories the media are happily peddling.

I should note that I totally disagree with the writer's idea of moving from ALARA which is a really good practice whatever industry and whatever unchosen risk is being assessed.  I guess the important thing is to know the difference between ALARA and safe/dangerous.

Teeshirt - US network of Baptist Women in Ministry; thanks G & W.

And, as it happens, this is what the only woman Baptist minister in pastoral charge of a BUS church currently looks like.

This morning I was once again at my exercise class.  As we were having our all important cuppa afterwards, one of the women commented that something was a 'Campsie cut' - an expression which evidently means something like a "pig's ear" or a "dog's breakfast" or a "bodge job."  After this she seemed to feel the need to say to me "do you know what 'xyz' means" to almost every sentence.

The Census Scotland form asks if you understand, read or write English, Scots and Gaelic.  The middle of these is proving controversial, some people saying it's a language, others saying it's a dialect and still others saying it's just slang.

It did get me wondering just where dialect/idiom stops and language begins.  There are some very localised English dialects such as those in parts of Yorkshire or Cumbria, and idiom varies dramatically... it is quite telling that my own mother says that on the phone she distinguishes between my sister and myself on the basis of idiom rather than accent.

Just to note that only one person in the class, apart from the user, knew the expression Campsie cut, and all of them were Glaswegians.  As to why she asusumed I wouldn't know what 'gallivant' meant, I am at a loss, but I promise not to get mardy (Midlands) or nowty (NW England) about it!!

You can check here if you need to translate my idiom

Today as I was standing outside the hopsital taking in the morning air I saw my friendly fox, last seen on 17th September last year who was, if Tim P's comment was to be taken appropriately seriously, NICE approved, even if NICE doesn't carry so much weight up here.

A very quick visit to the radiotherapy department to be scanned and tattooed - three tiny pin-prick marks - and then out in to what was by then a lovely morning.

It was good to see the fox again, and better to realise how far I've come since the first encounter.

Now I'm planning to get out for a walk and enjoy the fine weather before it disappears south for the weekend.