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What I read

Finished High Stakes. I previously noted a pattern in Dick Francis of the conditional rather than utter win.

Antonia Hodgson, The Raven Scholar (Eternal Path Trilogy, #1) (2025) - think I picked this up as a Kobo deal, because people were mentioning it? I realise that I am no longer in the habit of reading fat multi-volume fantasies of this ilk. I found it all a bit much, really.

Then did some nibbling (what do Tiggers eat?) and then settled into a re-read of Barbara Hambly, The Nubian's Curse, not one of the top Benjamin Januarys perhaps but still pretty good. Possibly when I am in that sort of phase I should just go Hambly/Haddam/Paretsky/Cross?

Currently Reading

Dorothy Richardson, Honeycomb (Pilgrimage, #3) (1917) for online reading group.

Up next

Today's Kobo Deal was the latest Jonathan Kellerman Alex Delaware thriller, Jigsaw, so probably that.

Then possibly more Hambly.

At some point must read Adania Shibli, Minor Detail (2017) for the in-person reading group.

Okay, it was lovely to see the heron again on my walk today. I wonder if it had decided that the eco-pond, with its shoals of Invasive Predatory Goldfish which people have dumped in it to the detriment of other life (frogs, newts, dragonflies) is a delicious all-you-can-eat buffet.

Assuming it is the same heron and that the first did not just tell a friend.

***

In more annoying news, today partner had a go at fixing my printer, which has been giving 'Paper Jam in Tray 1' error messages -

- and after doing pretty much the equivalent of open heart surgery on the thing, lo and behold, there was, entirely concealed from view, a page jammed in the works.

I depose that having to eviscerate a printer to discover this is something of a design fault?

Unfortunately, once the printer was put back together, it decided that the gate was open and it was not going to print anything.

Partner is going to have another go at it tomorrow, but I suspect that New Printer is in the future.

***

Meanwhile, I copied my paper for tomorrow to a memory-stick and took it to partner's computer so that I could print it out there.

This was accomplished successfully.

Anyway.

Partner and I are in need of a solicitor for a fairly routine and non-urgent matter, so, looked up who it was we went to last time we had a routine life admin thing requiring the services of a legal professional.

(This was actually a bit more time-consuming than I anticipated, have I mentioned that archivists are really Not All That at keeping on top of their own papers? The cobbler's children syndrome.)

But, I found the name of the practice and looked them up on The Internetz and they are there, as having gone out of business some few years ago, on Companies House website.

And they are by no means the first solicitors I have had dealings with, though I think the ones in Kentish Town saw me through the purchase of First Flat and present dwelling and possibly various other legal matters, but are now no longer operating more or less adjacent to the Tube station.

I suppose that these days one should not anticipate that you have Old Mr Thing the attorney-at law and Young Mr Thing his son who keeps up the practice and Even Younger Mr Thing who is being brought on in the family tradition -

- and that these things come and go like everything else and they are no longer quite the repository of folk memory like in mystery novels.

Way back when I was starting out as a Wee Babby Archivist, I remember that a big thing of the day, practically A Crisis, was solicitors' records. As I was never actually employed in a repository where I had any direct dealings with the problem, I'm not sure whether this was due to practices going defunct, or just somebody going down into the cellar and realising that they still had all the papers from Jarndyce v Jarndyce back to its origins along with tons of other stuff. But anyway, there were Massive Amounts of Very Misc Material (quite surprising what turned up) which looking back I suspect had all sorts of issues around ownership to complicate matters even further.

(If anyone has recs for N London solicitors would be glad to hear of them.)

And the boidies around here in the past week have included the heron in the eco-pond being very up for a closeup, Mr de Mille, parakeets, and several magpie courting couples.

There have been a fair amount of flowers blooming in the spring, trala, for some weeks now, the daffs have been a particular feature, calling Mr Wordsworth, and today there was a massive show of narcissi along one edge of the playing field.

Among the less flamboyant flowers, the Wildflower Corner included grape hyacinths, and dandelions.

The trees along the street are busting out in leaves and blossom.

We also note that toxic nitrogen dioxide pollution in London has fallen to air quality standards in under ten years (rather than the projected nearly 200).

So I think I've pretty much got my presentation sorted for next week at around the right length and with a slightly superogatory Powerpoint, but everybody seems to do these these days, sigh.

And I have got off a review of an article which was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, not bad at all.

And I have read the thesis I was asked to read and am trying to think of some questions which are not, which novelist would you pick to depict the seething tensions within [local organisation therein discussed], because I was going, hmmm, is this Barbara Pym purlieu or not?

And although there have been some hiccups along the road a further volume in the Interminable Saga should be appearing in the not too distant future though there are some niggling things still happening.

And I may have mentioned Doing A Podcast some months ago and the same people have come back to ask me to contribute to another one in their series, for which I realise I ought to do a certain amount of prep.

Book review still hanging over me.

Various matters of life admin.