my kind of splendour in the grass

I take a day off today to get over the rigours of yesterday's travelling. Time was when I would have breezed through something like this, and to be fair I do feel fine today. But I felt that, as I am in a position to do this, it was prudent to give myself a break.

After a nice long lie-in, this afternoon I lay out in the garden to read for an hour, naked save for my smalls, on perhaps the warmest day of the year so far (25 degrees). In order to avoid sunburn I change my position every six pages (or about ten minutes) This is the first occasion this year I have been able to do this; I hope the coming summer will enable me to report this activity on many future occasions. Deploying nature in this way is one of my favourite pursuits, though my wife does not enjoy lying in the sun as I do, preferring to potter in the garden engaged in more useful pursuits.

This evening we entertain 2 of our oldest friends for a meal and some Nintendo Wii. My wife humbled him 3 weeks ago when she thrashed him at tennis. He will be looking forward to taking his revenge, but the smart money remains on the girl.

I shall report the results in tomorrow's bulletin.

COMMENT

This week we have seen the fall of Lord Triesman, after falling foul of a kiss-and-tell scam run by the Mail on Sunday. Sure, it's good journalism, the same way as seeing someone getting killed live is good television, but what I find myself thinking is, do the owners of the MoS really not want the World Cup to come here? Aren't they supposed to be the big purveyors of British-bulldog-type patriotism? Apparently not. Mind you, they've got an (admittedly reluctant) fan here at home. My wife never wanted the Olympics in the first place, and she doesn't want the World Cup either. Looks like she's gonna get her wish this time around at least...