Grrrrrr. Cross with lady luck today. Joan and Helen went to the Bingo with a load of Helen's colleagues last night. Won nothing. Lady two tables away scooped up £96,000 on the national link up game. Not fair at all.

Otherwise today going as normal for me - finally got the covers signed off (again). Hopefully there will be nothing else that can go wrong between now and delivery. Fingers, toes and legs crossed. Given that one of my targets for next year is to be getting an outlet for books in every parish (all 496 of them across Suffolk!) it would be nice to actually have something to deliver.

Not normal for Joan - she woke up with a bit of a headache and has apparently been ill twice this morning but feelign a bit better now. Which is good as she is planning to pop up to the cemetary with some flowers later (in advance of Father's Day on Sunday).

That's something I can't get my head around. Not Joan putting some flowers near her Dad's memorial plaque but the number that turn up at the sites of accidents. There were a couple of school kids killed in a car accident last week just down the road from the office here. Going past last night on the way home I had a look, and would estimate that around £2,000 worth of flowers, soft toys etc have been piled up along the wall where it happened. I can't believe they are all from people who knew the kids in question. And if they didn't know them, why do people do it? It just doesn't make sense to me. You could say it is a tribute or a way of sharing feelings or something but I just don't get it. Personally I'd rather stick a few quid in a fund that would buy something tangible for their school or something. Then there would be some sort of lasting memorial rather than a pile of slowly wilting blooms that will cost the council a tidy sum to clear up in the next few days (and of course they have to judge when to clear up very carefully - too soon and they would no doubt be branded as unfeeling).

Anyhow, still thoroughly enjoying the Ransome book. Had a vivid recollection of buying it this morning as I was driving in. I knew of the book's existence from a review in a magazine I'd been passed (as a known Ransome fan) by my Grandparents way back in about 1987 or 8 but never seen it in the shops. Fast forward to 1992 and a college field trip to the Lake District (Setting for 5 of the 12 Swallows And Amazons tales). On the last morning we called in at some visitor centre or other and there it was sitting in the gift shop's book section. So, while everyone else was stocking up on Kendal mint cake I knew what I had to have. Didn't care about any damage to my image caused by buying a book about a children's author either (well, by then it was our final year so I guess people had made their minds up about me by then). I didn't even manage to resist starting it there and then on the minibus home - certainly made the journey better for me. Must get back up there sometime. And of course I have since added a biography, Ransome's autobiography and a book about his boats to the collection. Must get more of the other stuff available (in fact have procured about 100 pages worth of articles and comments off the web already this morning, with some more to come when I've processed this lot).

Alexander's 17th Birthday tomorrow - if all goes well we will be going up there for dinner. Hope I can manage to eat some of it (htis one-sided chewing is begining to drive me insane).