Spring

A ladybird on my computer keyboard!

It's bright red and black against the white, and big - three spots on either wing. It's doing that hapless thing of flaring its thin grey under-wings, then being unable to quite fold them in again neatly. Of course we're quite randomly societally conditioned to be delighted by some insects and repulsed by others, but it's delightful all the same.

It's now moved on to my books, and seems to have a particular interest in "Forbidden Journeys", a collection of Victorian fairy tales.

Last night, after a discussion of whether Oxford would be a better place to do a graduate degree than Cambridge, because you could go "MA Cantab, MA Oxon!" like a great twerp, or whether it would be worse because it's not as pretty a town, Sam and I both voted to go on a day-trip to determine whether it really was less pretty. This turned out to be economically unfeasible - why isn't there a direct Cambridge-Oxford train link? it would foster cooperation - but now I do quite want to go day-tripping. Tom is getting his car after term ends, so if we can fit it in with my call-centre work we might all drive to Norfolk for a day or two. In the meantime I'll have to content myself with ladybirds, and lunch from the cheese shop.