Let's welcome the sun back into the kitchen. With all the rotten weather of late, it was a joy at just after six this evening to feel the warmth of the sun through the kitchen window. Just as the return of the sun back in January was heralded by the way it climbed back over the rooftops of the houses opposite, so the summer months are noted by the way the trajectory sweeps more and more over the back garden as we approach the equinox. It will be late August before we lose the late afternoon kitchen sun now.
I like April for its sense of opening out. I don't agree with TS Elliot that it is the cruelest month. I love it for the promise of lighter nights and warmer days to come. At yoga this evening, we began the session in full light and, even by the end at 9pm, there were glimmerings in the sky. By next week, it will be almost light by that time.
August, however, is the really tricksy month. That's when the nights really close in again though you don't realise it because it's summer and you're having too much fun. I remember I noticed it first when I used to spend summer weeks on a residential drama course in Anglesey. At the start of the course, the evening entertainment would finish at about 9pm in full light. Three weeks later, the sessions would finish in complete darkness. The joy of light had slipped away again without our noticing.
Meanwhile, I'm not feeling all that brilliant. It sort of set in on Saturday. Don't
know whether I'm sickening for something or whether a more spiritual malaise is
taking hold again. Might be the business of being back at work again with the pressures
of Central London, might be being without Ross after an emotional few days (positive
emotions but nevertheless I'm feeling the lack of him), might be about thoughts about
family and all sorts of related stuff. Dunno, anyhow I'm feeling tired and listless
and slightly fluey - just like I was feeling two months ago - God will it never end!!
Maybe I'm just feeling croaky from the chemicals used to clean the carpets and
upholstery. 
Anyhow, what else have I been doing since I last wrote? Lunch on Saturday with Gill was very pleasant and Sunday afternoon brought a visit from my sister, Linda, Ian, her husband, and Helen, Ian's 9 year old daughter by his first marriage. The latter event reduced me to fits of dizziness. I guess I would have been OK with just Linda and Ian but, having a youngster visit, I went to pieces. I guess it gives me a view on how my relations must have reacted to Linda and I being brought to visit when we were little. Still, it went very well and, as I said to Linda on the phone later, no doubt by the third or fourth visit, I will have gotten into a routine and won't be quite so uptight about it all.