Slowly, slowly summer creeps towards me.

Listening to the radio playlist on David Byrne's website. It's 'pop' and I'm quite enjoying it so far.

What I should be doing is reminding myself about the use of illustration in Egyptian texts and whether the Fayum mummy portraits are true portraits, but I'm blogging instead. Why? Because I am the queen of procrastinators and Jo has dealt with all the domestic stuff around the house (except vacuuming; I am saving that for tomorrow).

I doubt that you are wondering where I have been for the last month or so, but in case you were I haven't been doing anything truly groundbreaking. Sorry to disappoint. The main bugbear of recent times has been a trying saga involving tenancy tribunals, non-payment of rent and tenancy agreement issues - yes, I confess I am a landlady. Through circumstance rather than choice, but a landlady nonetheless. The whole sordid tale should be finally brought to a crashing and definite end in the next few days (clue - bailiffs are now involved), but my feeble lefty liberal leanings have been quite bruised.

I am also fairly bruised, particularly in the area of my left knee, from my latest attempts to recapture my youth and snowboard. This time we went to Turoa, the other side of Mount Ruapehu. In an attack of over-zealousness, I agreed to test my ability by hitting a blue (intermediate) run. It was not pretty and I spent the rest of the day larking about on the training slope, where I managed for the first time to complete a full turn without falling over. In fact I managed 3 whole turns in a row - once. I also realised that snowboarding/learning to snowboard is quite knackering, so by early afternoon I was shattered. Jo headed off and did some fancy schmancy black/blue runs, just to make the trip worth her while and then we headed back to our motel. The return journey was fairly heavily laden with me going on and on about being far too old for this shit and we have now reached a semi-compromise for next year's efforts = doubtless I will be knackered by lunchtime, so I should just head back to wherever we are staying and then drive back up to collect Jo when she's done. If, by some freakish turn of fate, I manage to master going downhill on snow on a slidey thing without maiming myself, I can of course join in the fun. Otherwise I'll just go home and read/cook/play with dog/whatever.

What I haven't mentioned about my most recent mountain hi-jinks was the amount of swearing and at least two incidents of rage-fuelled snow throwing. So, so undignified.

However, I did return home to find a letter containing some photos of my most recently acquired godchildren, Joe & Fin, who (just like my other godsprog, Megan) appear to be two of the most lovely babies ever. Hooray for Funnell genes!

Adios.