It’s been lovely, warm but breezy weather here for the past few days. We’re taking advantage by leaping to do lots of laundry that we can hang outside (unexciting but important!) and by spending as much time outside as possible. This afternoon Patrick, Nika and I walked down into the valley and spent almost 2 hours there, at least half of it just hanging out in a sunny field, lying in the grass and talking (or eating grass and being petted, in Nika’s case). There’s a gorgeous robin’s-egg-blue sky through the lace curtains on the window in front of my desk as I type this entry, and my desk ivy, Hermione, is soaking up the heat and light.

It’s been a funny week. Not much do at work, but very little time to do anything else in the day. I’ve been jogging every morning before work with a friend, though, which has been really, really good for me. Nika is getting used to it slowly--she doesn’t like jogging (not being allowed to stop and smell interesting scents along the farm track) and hoped I’d given it up for good five months ago. I’m feeling a lot better, though, now that I’ve started regularly doing it again.

I also finally, finally finished Chapter Five of the tentatively-titled Congress of Shadows novel. I’ve been going through a big crisis of confidence over writing in general in the past week, but I think (knock on wood!) I’m pretty much through it for the moment...well, as much as I ever am. Enough to write pretty steadily, which is all I can really hope for! My big goal for this weekend is to make it a Serious Writing Weekend, and today I was thrilled by the results--five pages written of Chapter Six this afternoon (which is a fabulous triumph when you compare it to my daily rate of 1-1/2 pages or less over the past week).

Last night we watched an old Terry Gilliam-Michael Palin movie, Time Bandits, which I’d never seen before. It was just perfect for a Friday afternoon--a sweet, funny kids’ fantasy with bite, and the most fun camp bad guy (he’s actually named ‘Evil’) I’ve seen in a long, long time. My favorite line from the movie was one of his, when he’s in a particularly triumphant mood:

“Ah, Benson, Benson, the power of evil courses through every vein in my body, filling me with the desire to Do Bad!”
(Benson) “Oh, I’m so glad for you, sir!”

Really, really fun. :)