Phenomena

My new calendar arrived on Wednesday giving me the best part of a whole day to appreciate January before turning the page to February. It's from the London Review of Books so doesn't exactly offer the inspiring photographs of lovely gardens or beautiful scenery that I usually go for but it is stimulating in an abstract, bookish sort of way. I'm very pleased with it. Looking at other people's gardens is something I particularly enjoy, and in my travels I see that snowdrops, crocuses and aconites are already flowering though they not at my place. An evil squirrel has dug up all my bulbs and scoffed the lot especially the precious tulips in pots, so there is no early colour for me. Looking in the shed yesterday I could see that all the bulbs I've been storing in there have disappeared too. I can't blame that on a squirrel. The only things left are two packets of especially glorious anenomies in a dark burgundy colour, presumably not very tasty to ratus ratus, or mousus mousus, so they will go into the ground shortly and join my other anenomies. I love their flowers.

I watched All The President's Men last night as promised, and was struck by how dated it was. I don't just mean in the way that both Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman wore their trousers right up to the waist with belts to keep them neatly in place, nice though that was to see. But the politics, where an American president could be impeached for telling a relatively small lie, covering up the misuse of campaign funds, and the massive shock waves this created. Lies and wrong-doing are ever present in American politics these days, and although feeble attempts are made to bring the culprits to justice nobody seems to be very surprised that they exist. The thought of Trump being impeached for his criminality is just laughable.

We went out to see the super blue moon on Wednesday night, and it was indeed very bright. But nothing like the staggering images I saw of it rising over Glastonbury Tor. The trick is clearly to view it near the horizon when it appears to be much bigger than when it's high in the sky. The first of the three super moons on my birthday stopped us in our tracks as we drove back from the restaurant, and so did the one just after New Year. I watched to see if either Hugo or I were affected by the full moon but we remained our normal sanguine, calm selves. If he did anything crazy when I'd gone to bed there was no evidence the next day.