Like a Lamb
9 March

The nodding yellow trumpets of the daffodils mark the beginning of a mild start to the month of March.

I have a current feeling that I want to break the year up into different segments from the usual designation of four seasons. To me, it feels that 21 October through to 21 February is the dark time of the year. 21 February through to 21 June is the time of expanding light. 21 June though to 21 October is the time of contracting light.

I've started travelling into work again by bus which means I've started reading again and have polished off Joanne Harris's Coastliners another of her sagas of tradition versus modernity and closed communities versus outsiders. It was an alright read. Some bad weather this weekend gave me the opportunity to polish off Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban which was a treat. I'm looking forwards to the new book in June.

At work we heard that we got some funding which means that there will be training happening for the foreseeable future. I've still yet to hear about going part time.

The mildness of the weather obviously has people coming out of hiding. I heard from Colin, Colin and Phil during the week as well as more routine calls from parents and family. Ross and I also heard that cute neighbour Jamie nearly totalled his car and himself earlier in the week.

New curtains for the lounge have now arrived and are installed, hung and draped from a draw string system. This should make it easier for Ross to close them. The old curtains are now in the front bedroom providing much better insulation from light and cold outside. This means that all of the curtaining that was inherited with the house has now been superseded.

We took some time out on Sunday afternoon to visit the Walker Art Gallery. On display in a special exhibition was their newly restored portrait of Henry VIII in all its glory. This is an image I grew up with but not with the colours glowing with such lustre. The restorers have done a fine job. It was interesting also to see the painting in the context of others which, like the one I am used to, are, in fact, copies of an original Holbein which was destroyed when the Palace of Whitehall burnt down on 4-5 January 1698. We tend to think of the notion of copies and posters as being a very modern phenomenon but the four assembled portraits each giving exactly the same pose with modified backgrounds and details show that Renaissance England was also a place where copyists worked to distribute and disseminate popular images. Presumably this one had an element of state sponsorship with it. If you were as radical a monarch as Henry, making enemies and allies at a canter, then having a copy of this portrait was one very public way of saying whose side you were one. Not unlike all those people who had photographs of Margaret Thatcher in their offices during the 1980s. A definite three stars for interest's sake.

The other exhibition sitting alongside it was, coincidentally, of photographs by John Deakin, fashion photographer and denizen of 50s and 60s Soho. There were a number of interesting studies of the celebrities and artists of the era including the painter, Francis Bacon. Looking through the literature it would appear that he was not a very pleasant person. That sort of came through in the portraits which mostly felt very uneasy.

It was still sunny when we got home so I spent a pleasant hour of so out in the back garden. We have a plethora of seeds from this and previous years so I had a planting time. I put out most of the remaining herb seeds that we have in the herb garden just outside the back kitchen door along with some of the remaining carrot seeds. Down at the bottom end of the garden, I put out the first sowing of green beans. I intend to put out two more plantings of beans at monthly intervals to give us a good and long lasting crop. I also put out some night-scented stock and I'm going to try and do the same trick there as well so that we get nice smells throughout the summer. Finally, I planted up two sorts of morning glory to cover part of the back wall.

Getting dirt under the fingernails is a good way of celebrating the onset of the vernal season.