Cloudburst

That's quite a storm outside. The air is white with rain and hail, and the thunder, although not loud, is continuous with the sound of someone waggling a tin tray.

I am back in Oxford, met this morning by fresh vomit, reeking of alcohol, streaming across the pavement. England won a cricket match, I am feeling rather unrested, and did not get the fanfic done that I intended. This is probably the least important thing that I didn't do whilst on holiday, but it would have been nice to get a bit of it moving.

I am reading Stephanie Meyer's latest effort in the bookshop. I normally don't worry about books "giving the wrong message" to children. Children can take anything from anything, and very often not what was intended. But oh dear me, are there no better tales of teen angst and undead love? I keep expecting to learn that Romeo and Juliet is in fact a thinly veiled True Story of vampires in Disney!Italy.

On holiday I have read Farthing, of which more on another occasion, and am now reading The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett, which I have wanted to do since listening to it as the Sunday serial on Radio 4 last year, the tale of two rather unexciting people coming to be important to one another:

"And he kissed her trembling honest mouth almost as if he had been a man - not quite, but almost."

I am now reflecting on its possibilities as re-written by James Lee Burke.

I really do need to write some fanfiction. I still owe some of the drabbles which I asked for suggestions for last month, and on the train yesterday Impey Biggs turned up in Corsica to relate a sad account of laws concerning custody of magical children born to Squibs. I have also found the absolutely perfect quotation to head the "just after the end of Gaudy Night" fic - in addition, of course, to that immortal line from Friends: "Ross's hand is on my butt!"