and Summer dresses in new bloom

Summer is here! Goddammit. It has been stinking hot, a fact in which my reluctant nose has been rubbed by two outdoor excursions in the last two days. Yesterday's departmental end-of-term lunch was pleasant, but hot, causing me to commit two separate indiscretions: (1) getting my shoulders somewhat sunburned, despite the Great Pre-Raphaelite Garden Party Hat (not my phrase); and (2) holding forth for twenty minutes to an incautiously questioning couple of postgrads on the subject of Roleplaying, what it is and how it works. While I managed to segue this rant cunningly into pseudo-intellectualese ("roleplaying! externalising the process of struggle for narrative control! participative storytelling! hypertext! improvisatory textual processes! there's a paper in here somewhere!"), I still don't think admission of these dodgy hobbies is very good for my somewhat shaky standing in the dept. At least no-one mentioned the SCA.

Today's jaunt in the Great Outdoors was much less fraught, entailing as it did me, my sister, my niece, a blanket, a flask of wine, a loaf of bread beneath the bough (damn this Omar Khayyam, he's insidious) at Kirstenbosch Gardens for several hours. Most pleasant: there's always a breeze up there. Features of the afternoon included baby ducks, baby geese, baby babies, lunch, light boozing, and not much movement of any sort, which suits me fine. I took the opportunity to hone my Aunting skills, and now have a reasonable grasp on which end is up, and what to do when they whinge. (Hand them straight back to Mother).

Further to the Aunting theme, I did this day acquire a copy of Neil Gaiman's Wolves In the Walls, about two weeks too late for the encylopedia entry; sod's law of course dictates that it's consequently probably the best thing by him I've read. It's an outstanding children's book, a truly excellent mix of funny and chilling, with Dave McKean's beautiful, weird, unlikely collagey/photography drawings. All young children should acquire a copy at the earliest inst. I shall be liberally applying said copies to various spawn, of both relations and friends, the very instant I think they're still too young for it. Get 'em while they're impressionable, say I.

Alas, as a net result of all the heat and stuff, I am headached beyond belief, and am typing this at a slow, drug-hazed stagger in default of actually attending carnun's birthday bash. Sorry, carnun, but zombied women bumping into walls is always a bit of a downer at parties. Must now head off bedwards in a stumbling, zig-zag manner, pausing only to rugby-tackle Fish before she occupies my bed. (I can't let her sleep there at night: she is contrary enough that she always wants to leave about five seconds after I've dropped off to sleep, and I have to wake up and let her out because she's too fat to jump through the window. However, if she esconces herself she's bloody hard to move, given as how she growls and bites me if I try. Not for nothing is she known in my immediate circles as the Death Fishy. Darned cat.)