Nothing

 Apologies for the (relative) blog silence; I have been doing nothing. Perhaps I should elaborate on that. Last Thursday evening I was clobbered by a quite dramatic, but mercifully short-lived, 'bug' of some kind, which left me somewhat wiped out (and with a very tiresome cough). At the weekend I took myself off to Derbyshire to spend some recuperative time with my cousin. We practised, as best we could, the ancient Italian art of dolce far niente, exerting ourselves only to cook, eat and attend to the animals. On Sunday, however, we did take a walk on Stanton Moor, a pleasing landscape of heather, gorse and birch, not to mention the Nine Ladies stone circle. The day was bitter cold and the skies leaden – no feeling of spring at all, though the plants were dutifully doing their thing and the more muscular among the bumble bees were managing to take to the air. That evening, tuning in with numb fingers to the Countryfile weather forecast, that indispensable work of speculative fiction, I was amused to discover that Sunday had been the warmest day of the year. Clearly Derbyshire hadn't got the memo.
Anyway, I am better for the rest, though the cough persists, and I hope to be a little more communicative in the days to come.