*ping* *splatch* *tonk* *boing*

Hail! It's thundering and lightninginginginging, and bucketing with rain, and there are little white hailstones plummeting down madly in all directions. Not so little, either - some are nearly a centimetre across. Drifts of white across the paving stones, and sudden flurries of rattling against the windows. It's raining! I am suddenly a higher, lighter, nobler being, given to bounding madly round the house shouting things like "Wheee!" and "Joy!" and "Calloo, callay!", instead of growling, muttering and swearing at my computer. My headache has suddenly gone. The garden is reviving, where it's not being cut to shreds (sigh). Life is suddenly worth living. Rapier practice is a total washout (hee), but into each life some rain must fall (hee hee).

Memo to self: move to damper climate.

In other news, I seem to have mislaid most of this month so far. How did we suddenly arrive at the 10th? It has crept up on me in the lowest and sneakiest fashion, and is suddenly breathing down my neck. I should have sent off DT today at the latest, instead of which I've had to start it in one hell of a rush. Hence the swearing, see above.

Yesterday's gathering for purposes of maddened experimentation in the realm of French medieval cooking, was, as usual, a blast. Six different cooks creating more or less organised chaos in one kitchen, with much purloining of necessary implements from each other, tasting of various sauces, and falling over each other in confined spaces. Chummy. Good food, too. Woe on behalf of Jo, down with the Dreaded Bronchial Lurgi as of this morning, and thus once again putting off the dinner we were supposed to be having tonight. Roast chicken will have to be consumed by Evil Landlord and self.

It's raining. Bulletin from my drought-scarred childhood: all's right with the world.