Week's jottings

I'm surfacing this afternoon from a week's worth of editing work.  I enjoy doing it but this time because I've been checking out a lot of websites it's given me a snapshot of what's happening with some government departments.  There's a lot of rationalisation of sites taking place and information services shut down. The tip of a lack of funding iceberg.

What else has been happening?

I went to see Ibsen's League of Youth at Nottingham Playhouse last week.  Apparently it's an early play but it had some digs at politicians and coalitions much appreciated by the audience of mostly older people.

Enjoyed a trip across to Norfolk on Sunday with time in Hunstanton and at Norfolk Lavender.  Hadn't seen their red cliffs before.  We did get on the beach having been blown along the promenade.  As Noel Coward said 'Very flat Norfolk' though I didn't feel quite that sense of vast emptiness I had when I went to Ely and drove across the fens. Whenever I buy vegetables in the winter I think about the people who pick them out in that area and across the Lincolnshire wolds.  Even with their technology it's still hard work.

Reading Sophie Hannah at the moment Point of Rescue - very complex plot.

Enjoyed the Vera series on television with Brenda Blethyn but had only read one of the books and they changed a lot in that episode.  Have to treat them as separate entities which is hard when you are attached to the books.  I love Elizabeth George's novels but even the early adaptations couldn't do justice to them.

Relistening on BBC 4 Extra to the wonderful Simon Russell Beale in the Smiley adaptations.  The pictures are better on radio.It's also been giving me chance to catch up with some Jane Austen adaptations with Juliet Stevenson in Persuasion.  Quite my favourite Austen book.