Greatitudes 418 - 433

First of all a resounding thank you to Prince Charming and to the Provider of Provision for a new computer. Our long cherished and much upgraded machine died exactly as I was reading an email that was important and urgent and crash, there it all went. But my wonderful no drama needed PC went out last night and sorted a replacement PC with great aplomb and characteristic wisdom. Which means that his wife can go on blogging instead of cleaning his house. Most gracious man! And in case you're interested in the technical details, it is black.

And the main reason why I can be blogging instead of cleaning the house this week is that, apart from available technology, suns are shining away at tennis camp every morning this week. Oh the sheer relief and bliss of a respite oasis in the middle of the dry and parched land- which it isn't, by the way, because normal summer weather has returned to the frozen North!!

We are (PC is) slowly reconnecting bits and retrieving what we (he) can from the machine wreck, so no photographs yet, but we are all very grateful for a most exciting weekend of glamping! Cooking Catherine informed me that this was in fact what we had just spent two night doing when we arrived at the latest fabulous Cooking family birthday party at the Giant's Causeway on Sunday afternoon.

We thought we had slept in a glorified garden shed, spent days on the beach with bodyboards, a surfboard, and buckets in which to catch crabs and minnows, and had breakfast on the last day in a nice hotel simply because of the amazing offer they were running- but no, it seems we have joined the Cath Kidston generation at last! (There will be more to come on Cath Kidston, when I can psyche myself up enough to reveal what I actually, really, unfortunately think...) Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to prove our foray into contemporary culture!

I am extremely grateful for blogs and more importantly bloggistes. Fraise is nearly two years old and I feel a time of evaluation settling upon me. What I do know with great certainty is that reading the thoughts and journeys of women across the planet has been a great revelation, encouragement, stimulation and privilege. And when you discover that you do actually know someone you would never ever have met, to whom you now email and with whom you now share and for whom you now care deeply, well, that it is a use of the Internet that is wholly holy.