brief biographical update

I am such an explainy person. It's impossible to launch into writing about what I am doing without writing about who I am right now; it just feels far too rude. Not when other people do it, mind... when other people do it I enjoy the puzzle of piecing together the biography from the books and knitting and opera and food and pictures of lovely scenery. But it feels very uncomfortable to do it that way myself.

So as I said back in April, I'm pregnant; the baby is due in October, and we have mostly certainly reached the phase in which I can feel her kicking! She kicks a lot, and I am already besotted with her, and am just keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes well in the future. I have no reason to think it won't, mind; I'm having an astonishingly normal pregnancy, especially compared to many of my dear friends who had rough times all through. But still, there's always that knowledge that something could go awry between now & October, or during the delivery itself, and so I cross my fingers and mentally write Deo Volente after everything, which I think I picked up from an E. M. Delafield novel, but that's how I feel about it.

Also back in April we (me, husband, two adored cats) moved into a new rental home, and I am still dizzy with delight over it. After years of apartment living it's wonderful having a little bit of garden in front, which garden is currently growing many vegetables, thanks to husband's hard work, and also some agapanthus and two kinds of lavender and lanteria and two lemon bushes, thanks to previous tenants or maybe the landlords. And yes, lemon bushes, they are trees growing right up against the front of the house that have been pruned so they don't get too tall, and they have been producing massive amounts of lemons every since we moved in. It's also wonderful being in a neighbourhood that's exclusively residential, so I see people walking dogs and strolling with children and am occasionally visited by a neighbourhood cat. Inside there's more space, more closets, nicer smells coming in through the windows, and it stays cooler in summer, although my pregnant bulk is more than making up for that. All in all this is a wonderful home, and I hope we can stay here until we finally buy a place somewhere and settle down for the truly long term.

So there, now I've set the scene properly, and can actually write about books in the two or three hours before it gets so warm outside I have to turn off the computer!